Honored Vow

summer, or
    anytime it wasn’t winter, I could imagine how green it must have been,
    but now everything was covered with heavy white snow. The river water
    was still clear and turquoise because it was reflecting the magnificent
    color as far as the eye could see. The travel books called Mongolia the
    country of blue sky, and as I stood, turning in every direction, I understood
    why. It was just endless. I felt like I was on another planet, as alien as
    everything felt.
    Absolutely nothing was like I thought. We were outsiders, so we
    stayed, literally, outside. There were no sleeping quarters for us. We were
    allowed only into common areas, the pit, corrals for animals, food stores,
    and a large main hall where the semel received visitors. It was where we
    were supposed to go after we were brought our morning meal of tea with
    milk and rice congee, which was porridge with pickled vegetables and tiny freshwater fish.

    Honored Vow

    155

    I was standing outside the ger I shared with the other six men who
    had made the trip with me when I saw Chuluun walking toward me with
    two other men that I had not met before. He himself looked exhausted.
    “Good morning,” I greeted him when he was close to me.
    He squinted, and his brows furrowed. “Good morning, my reah. May
    I introduce my sylvan, Naran, and my sheseru, Sükh?”
    I bowed quickly as they both went to their knees. I had forgotten that
    their tribe was much more formal than my own.
    There was a grumble of sound before Chuluun too went very slowly
    to his knees.
    What was I… oh. “Please,” I prodded them, “rise and be at ease in
    my presence.”
    They both stood. Naran helped Chuluun up and then shook his head.
    I smiled at the maahes. “Uhm, I’m gonna guess drinkin’?”
    He groaned, and the sheseru, who was trying really hard to hold onto
    his glower, had to give me a trace of a smile. “It seems that your own
    sheseru can hold his liquor better than the maahes of our tribe.”
    I nodded.
    Sometime in the middle of the night, I had woken to hushed voices
    whispering in the dark and had gotten up, gone around the partition that
    stood to give me, and only me, some semblance of privacy, and walked
    toward the front of the ger. It had gotten colder the further I moved from
    the wood-burning stove that gave off the only heat, but when I had
    discovered the source of the sound, I had doubted that the two men were
    concerned with the freezing temperature in the least.
    Chuluun’s pants had been piled on the ground beside him, and the
    man himself had been on his hands and knees, moaning softly as Yuri,
    fully clothed, his own pants shoved down just enough, took him from
    behind. It had been raw and hot, and as soon as my brain wrapped around
    what I was seeing, I had turned around and gone back to bed, too tired to
    let the muffled whimpers and cries keep my eyes open.
    Hours later, I had been awoken when Yuri came stumbling back
    toward the main area. I had pushed my head up under the small silk
    curtain to see him. He had been shivering and wet and had, he had told me
    through chattering teeth when he noticed me, washed himself in the river

    156

    Mary Calmes

    beside the ger. It had been morning already, and even though he smelled
    mostly like him, there had still been alcohol on his breath.
    “At least you don’t smell like come,” I had teased him.
    He had grunted and Mikhail had woken up.
    “What are you guys doing?” he had grumbled irritably at us.
    “Just freezing to death,” Yuri had said shakily.
    “Come here,” my sylvan had snapped at him.
    I had thought Yuri would have preferred to lay down by me and
    Crane, or Danny, or even Andrian, but he had gone instead to Mikhail and
    crawled under the blankets with him, and when I had checked later, he had
    been wrapped tight around his friend. But even watching them sleep, I had
    understood how devoid of sexuality it was. They had slept like cats, for
    warmth, companionship, but when Mikhail had moved, there had been
    that annoyance that I got with Crane, not the sensual invitation that any
    movement from Logan would have signaled.
    When he had risen before Mikhail in the morning, Yuri had been
    careful not to disturb him. As he had shed his shirt, I saw the marks.
    “Your back is covered in scratches,” I had told my sheseru from
    where I was sitting up on the furs, reading, waiting for the day to begin.
    “I’m sure,” he had said, not turning.
    There had been a bite that looked