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live with.”
    Riyik shrugged uncomfortably. “That’s just the way women are!”
    “It’s the way you have made them! Don’t you ever wonder about these things?”
    Riyik laughed. “I am beginning to. I’m also beginning to see that you are right that we are unsuited to be man and wife. But there might yet be some use in having a woman who is both healer and storyteller in my tent. Please, Woman From the West, tell me more about the women of my own tribe, since you know so much more than I.”
    If it had been anyone else, Kalie realized later, she would have given up right there. But she sensed something beneath Riyik’s sarcasm that made her push forward. If nothing else, she would give voice to things that had been burning inside her for nearly a whole turn of the seasons!
    Kalie twisted her hands into the long, cool grass, as if to make sure she spoke only with her mouth and not her fists. “In this place, what does a woman do when a man hurts her, or does things that make her unhappy?”
    Riyik shrugged. “It depends on who she is. And on what he has done, and on what she did to deserve it.”
    “Ah, yes. Always assume it’s somehow the woman’s fault. And if it isn’t blame her anyway, right?” She grinned at Riyik’s expression, but didn’t give him time to respond. “I’ll tell you what she does: she takes it out on whoever she can! A junior wife, a slave, even her own children! And the only real difference between your women and me is that I want revenge against the real enemy: the men! But the pain we feel inside, the rage at being so helpless—that’s the same for them as for me!”
    “No!” Riyik was shaking his head. “It’s not like that for everyone! There are women here who have no fear of their husbands—and more than a few husbands who fear their wives.” He snorted. “Watch Kahlar with his Leja someday if you don’t believe me. The women of Aahk are as strong and wild as a rutting stallion! My own Yalina never hesitated to tell me when I was wrong.”
    Kalie took a deep breath and gazed into the deepening twilight, wondering how to respond to that. She had no doubt Riyik was right about the examples he gave. And, amazingly enough, he was willing to listen. If there was just some way to make him imagine himself living as women were made to live here…
    She shook her head. That approach had failed often enough with the women. It would surely have no effect on a man who could just leap on his horse and ride to the ends of the earth the moment he tired of listening.
    Then, lightning struck.
    Kalie sat up, and faced Riyik as if for battle. “I have seen you riding by yourself often since we left the winter camp.”
    Surprised by the change in subject, Riyik nodded. “I have always been…different in that way. Oh, I like the company of my brother warriors well enough, but to me, the greatest joy is found beneath a clear blue sky, feeling the sun on my back, the wind in my hair, and a mount who is one with my body.” Riyik gazed into the distance, and Kalie knew he was longing even now, to be doing what he spoke of.
    For a strange moment, she wanted to be there with him, feeling the things he described. Then resolve flooded her, for she had what she wanted.
    “But your oath to your king is greater to you than all of that, isn’t it? Even dearer to you than your favorite horse?”
    Riyik snapped back to the present. “Yes, of course! It is so for all warriors, and I am a warrior before all else, even if I may prefer the hunting trail.”
    “What if your king demanded your favorite horse, as a sacrifice to the gods?”
    Riyik smiled sadly, as if he knew where she was going. “His name is Thunder. And yes, of course, it would grieve me, but I would do it.”
    “And what if, because of some crisis, the king needed his best minds in council in his tent for many days—and he named you his chief advisor.” Kalie knew such things happened, but was surprised to see the effect it had