But in the refugee caravan, no one spoke uninvited of clan or family outside—or the allegiances that had brought them all here. The potential that a new friend should prove an old enemy was more than anyone could bear.
* * *
The days warmed, which was both good—the greening grass would help feed hungry livestock—and bad, in that one could no longer sweep up snow to boil for water, but must ration one’s self between the shallow lakes that dotted the steppe. One morning four hands of days after the fall of Qarash, Temur roused himself in the long gray gloaming. He stood out of dew-damp bedclothes and pulled on the boots he’d tucked under a corner of the horsehide to keep them dry. Bansh cropped grass nearby. She’d grown leaner, as had Temur.
He offered her dried slices of persimmon as a bribe to slip the bit between her teeth; she lipped them up, whiskers brushing his palm, and stood patiently while he tacked her and rolled up his bedding. He was securing the bedroll behind his saddle when the shush and thump of hooves across steppe grass drew his attention.
He might have reached for his knife, but whoever rode toward him was making no attempt at stealth.
He looked up to see a girl about his own age, seventeen or eighteen winters behind her, seated astride a rangy rose-gray filly with the long ears and sparse mane of steppe blood. The young horse curvetted, snorting—showing off—and Bansh flicked her own ears as if to show herself unimpressed by the strenuous affectations of youth. The girl’s nervousness, Temur judged, was communicating itself to her mount.
She was old to be unmarried and still riding astride rather than proudly in possession of her own cart and household. But not every married woman gave up horses, especially not when there was a need for swift travel.
“Hail,” the girl said. “Are you Temur?” Long black hair, braided into ropes, protruded from under the wings of her hood. She was plump under her quilted breeches despite the rigors of travel, sloe-eyed, small-nosed between broad sweeps of cheek. Pretty.
Temur put a hand on Bansh’s shoulder and felt the liver-bay mare lean into it. He thought of the moons falling out of the sky every few days. He could be in Bansh’s saddle in an instant if he must. But it was just a girl, and she had not asked his clan. Just his given name.
He opened his mouth to answer and was struck by a sudden wave of grief. He was alone. Whatever family he had left might as cheerfully kill him as welcome him. And if his mother was dead, there was no one alive to speak his true name when he died, no one to whisper it to his wife when he married, no one to speak it in the ears of his mares so they might find him anywhere.
He was alone. He swallowed and said, “I am.”
“I’m Tsareg Edene.” She gave up her clan name without a thought. It was a good name, old and honorable, of a clan not prone to getting into other people’s fights. She looked down, pressing a palm flat against one of the broad cheeks that might have been inflamed with embarrassment.
Temur strove to make it easier on her. He kept his gaze down, on her mare’s fine-tipped silver ears rather than on the girl herself. The young horse was striking; she would eventually fade to the blistering, iridescent silver that gray steppe horses obtained, but for now she was the color of snow underneath and up the sides of her body, her head the color of new-hammered silver, her flanks and shoulders bright copper decorated with scalloped dapples of reddish silver.
The horse returned his examination boldly. The girl might not be accustomed to talking to strangers, but she was too stubborn to let modesty silence her. “My grandmother’s mother, Tsareg Altantsetseg, wishes to know if you will eat with us. She boiled a lamb overnight.”
Temur hesitated. Breakfasting on lamb in this time of need was near unto an offer of adoption, and he knew what brought it on—men of fighting and marrying age were scarce among the refugees. He’d heard of Tsareg Altantsetseg: She was a good part of the reason for her clan’s reputation for reserve and good sense. If she was seeking his favor in order to protect her daughters—well, it did not mean she knew his former family. It meant only that he’d made a good display of himself among the refugee band, and she knew he was a strong provider.
And she’d sent a pretty, marriageable girl to make the offer, which was a coded message as well. Or would be, until he had to tell her that there was no one to share his true name with her, or with any potential wife.
Bansh nudged him impatiently.
“I will come,” he said, and swung into the saddle, seating both feet in the iron stirrups. He let the reins hang casually and chirruped to Bansh as Edene swung her own mare around.