by Joan Wolf
The geese were rising from the river now. The whole sky was whirring and wheeling with them, and the sound of their keeronks echoed down the valley.
He heard himself asking, “What of my people from the Tribe of the Wolf?”
“I have no doubt that they will be welcomed back into their former tribes,” Neihle said. “After all, it is largely because of the Tribe of the Wolf that these mountains were saved from destruction.”
“Those of your people who worship the Goddess can come to us,” Erek added generously.
Silence fell. The geese were winging their way up the river now, honking and yulking to each other in the way of their kind. Ronan watched them disappear in the direction of the devastated home camps of the tribes of the Fox and the Bear.
“Well?” said Tyr.
Ronan turned to Nel, who was sitting so quietly by his side. What shall I do? he asked her with his eyes. What do you want me to do?
She returned his look gravely, then rested one slender hand upon his knee. He understood from its light pressure that she was leaving the decision up to him.
This was what he had always wanted, to be chief of the Red Deer. Even as a boy, deep in the innermost recesses of his heart, he had wanted it. When he had left home, a pariah, an exile, he had sworn to come back as the chief. It had even been part of the reason he had married Nel, because through her he had hoped to win his heart’s desire.
How ironic that now it was being offered to him, he no longer cared. More—he no longer wanted it. He realized, with a great lift of his heart, that at long last he was free of his mother.
He covered the slim fingers on his knee with his own warm hand. He said, “I have already decided not to take the Tribe of the Wolf back to the valley. There is not room enough there for additional people, and what is left of the tribes of the Fox and the Bear are going to join with us. We will occupy the old homesites of those two tribes. I have made certain that this is acceptable to the Tribe of the Leopard, which will be our nearest neighbor. Unwar has extended his welcome.”
There was absolute silence. Even the noise of the geese had faded. Nel’s fingers turned and laced themselves with his.
“You will not come back to us?” Neihle said at last.
“Na, Uncle. I already have a tribe that depends upon me. I cannot abandon them now.”
Silence fell again. Then Arika said, “I am proud of you, my son.”
Ronan smiled with genuine amusement. “I am certain that you are, Mother,” he said. “I am certain that you are.”
Epilogue
One year later
They stood shoulder to shoulder at the place where the ravine widened to give access to the valley. The scene before them was brilliantly illuminated by the bright afternoon sun: the mirror-calm lake; the thick, lush, snow-fed grass, ablaze with flowers; the enclosing walls, with flowers growing in all the tiny crevices. In the distance beyond the walls loomed the snowy peaks of the Altas, shimmering white bridges between heaven and earth.
Nigak pushed past Ronan and cantered out onto the grass. Then, flattening out and running like the wind, he streaked away down the valley.
Nel laughed softly. “He is home.”
“Mama,” piped a small clear voice from the cradleboard slung upon Ronan’s back. “Igak!”
“He’ll be back, Culen,” Nel said. “Nigak always comes back.”
“The huts don’t look as if they have been touched,” Ronan murmured, and Nel followed his gaze. In unison they started forward, each leading a horse and followed by Sintra and Leir.
White Foot whinnied excitedly as he recognized where he was. The horse-herd was halfway down the valley, but Nel could see how Impero’s head lifted at the sound of that whinny.
“I had almost forgotten how beautiful it is,” she murmured.
“The most beautiful place in the world,” he said.
Nel sighed.
* * * *
They went to their old hut, and Nel unwrapped Culen from his cradleboard and set him on his feet. A group of the men of the Wolf had come to the valley last autumn to collect some of the belongings that the tribe had left behind, but neither Ronan nor Nel had been back since they had left to go and fight the Horsemasters over one year before.
Culen toddled around the hut. He had already been walking for two moons and was quite steady on his feet. Sintra and Leir followed him, sniffing nostalgically at remembered smells.
Ronan collected the old water pot that was still in the hut and went to get water from the lake.
Nel untied the sleeping skins that had been fastened to the horses’ backs and spread them on the hut floor, first removing the cooking utensils that were wrapped inside them. As soon as Culen saw the cookpot, he came running. “Hungy. Hungy.”
“I know, love. I know. Mama will cook soon.”
Outside, they could hear Ronan giving water to the horses.
“Tirsty,” Culen said, and went determinedly to the door. He called, “Dada, I tirsty.”
“Come down to the lake with me, then, and we’ll get you a drink,” Ronan answered. Culen rushed off.
Left alone, Nel regarded the remaining fruits and grains she had stored in the cookpot. Ronan was going to have to get them something to eat, she thought. Perhaps a fish from the lake. Fish was easy for Culen to chew.
Most Kindred children had nothing but mother’s milk until they were almost three years of age, but Nel had begun to feed Culen real food as soon as he had a few teeth. She had found that, if she mashed his fruits and chewed his meats for him, he could eat just fine. In fact, she thought it was good for him. He was larger than most children his age and had begun to walk and talk at an early age.
She went to the door of the hut and looked out. Ronan had lifted Culen to his shoulders, and the little boy was riding proudly, surveying the scene before him like a chief. Nel smiled mistily to see them so.
I am glad that we decided to do this, she thought. It is good to be by ourselves for a little. When we are at home, it is so hard just to be by ourselves.
She repeated her thought to Ronan later that evening, after Culen had been put to sleep and the two of them had gone outside so Ronan could build a watch fire.
“I know,” he answered. He left the blazing fire and came over to where she was standing near the hut. As they stood together watching the fire, he said, “The bigger the tribe gets, the more of our time it seems to take up.”
“I miss the days in the valley,” she said softly. She laughed. “Remember the fuss over the horse-calling ceremony?”
“Mmmm.” He sounded amused.
“Life was simpler then,” she said.
“We could never have kept the number of horses we have now if we had stayed in the valley,” he pointed out. “You know that. You were the one who was always complaining about the difficulty of keeping stallions.”
“I know. Horsekeeping is certainly much easier now that we have the Horsemasters’ mares with just Cloud to lead them. Nor does Cloud seem to mind White Foot and Frost, the way Impero would.”
“He would mind them if we set them loose to join the herd, but as long as we keep them separate in their own corral, they are safe.”
“The other tribes appear to be faring well with the horses we gave to them.”
“They are learning,” Ronan said.
Nel rested her cheek against his shoulder. “The valley brings back so many memories of Thorn,” she said.
She felt him stiffen. She knew he felt responsible for Thorn’s death. This last year she had tried and tried to tell him he was foolish to blame himself, but he would not listen. Finally, she had come to understand that it was precisely this very ruthlessness in holding himself accountable that made Ronan such a fine chief.
“He has left a gap in the tribe,” Ronan said. “It is still there.”
“Sa.”
Despite the fire, the night air was cool, and she pressed closer to his warmth.
“Come inside, Nel,” h
e said in a low voice.
Inside, the light from the single stone lamp showed them Culen sleeping peacefully, nestled between Sintra and Leir.
Ronan smiled. “I sometimes fear that Culen will grow up thinking he is a dog himself.”
Nel chuckled.
It was warmer within the hut, and the air smelled faintly of the fish that Nel had grilled earlier. She sat down on her sleeping skins and began to undo the braid in her hair. Ronan went to the water pot and ladled himself a drink. She watched as he tipped his head back, watched the working of the muscles in his strong brown throat as he swallowed. He finished his drink, stripped his buckskin shirt over his head, and went to hang it on the wall.
For all of her earlier complaints, Nel thought, it had been a happy year for them both. The wound of rejection Ronan had carried in his heart ever since his expulsion from the Tribe of the Red Deer had finally healed. He could meet his mother now with no more emotion than he showed to Haras or any of the other chiefs. He had done so, in fact, at the last Spring Gathering.
And for her, the wound of childlessness had healed also. She had Culen now. Ironically, Morna’s hate-filled legacy had proved a means of strengthening Ronan’s marriage instead of destroying it. Every time Nel saw her husband pluck Culen from amongst the dogs and lift the shrieking and delighted baby to his shoulders, joy and gratitude surged through her heart.
Ronan had finished undressing and was coming toward her now on bare and silent feet, Nel shook out her hair and untied the thongs at the neck of her shirt.
“You are slow tonight, minnow,” he said, and kneeling in front of her, he finished the job of undressing her himself.
They stretched out together on the sleeping skins, and as he kissed her, his fingers gently caressed her breasts. The familiar ache of passion began to build, and when his tongue slipped in between her lips she opened her mouth against his, sinking under his touch, yielding her body utterly to his caresses.
“Nel.” His voice sounded like a growl. His mouth was all over her now, and she was quivering and quivering, reaching for him, seeking him, needing him.
“Come inside me, Ronan,” she whispered. “Now. Come now.”
The time for gentleness was over, and when he drove into her hard, filling her full, she closed around him, holding to him, moving with him in the most ancient of all mankind’s rituals.
* * * *
The following day, accompanied by Culen, Nigak, and the dogs, they walked up the valley to the cave that Thorn had made his own.
After the brightness of the day, it was very dark inside, and Ronan lit both of the stone lamps they had brought with them. Nigak and the dogs curled up outside in the sunshine, and Culen, after peering distrustfully into the damp darkness, announced that he would stay with the animals.
Nel hesitated. “He will be all right, Nel,” Ronan said. “There are no real predators in the valley, certainly nothing that Nigak cannot handle.”
“All right,” Nel relented, and the two of them lifted their lamps and entered the cave together.
It was a small cave, nothing like the tremendously deep sacred cave of Thorn’s Buffalo tribe. This cave had only two chambers: a small outer room and a larger inner chamber, and it was in the inner room that Thorn had done his work.
Ronan felt his breath catch as he realized what it was that surrounded him on the walls: scenes of the valley, drawn in black pitch and colored in ocher. There was an ibex pawing with a foreleg, to sweep the snow away from its forage; there a sheep, peacefully reclining, its eyes mere slits of satisfaction as it chewed its cud. And horses. Everywhere on the wall there were horses.
“Look,” Nel said, “there is White Foot! And Acorn!”
“Sa, and here is Impero, standing guard over the mares.”
After a while they moved slowly on, circling the cave to their left, and as they moved they realized that while Thorn had devoted the right wall to the valley animals, the back wall had been devoted to something else.
“Ronan,” Nel said. “Look how he has drawn Berta.”
Without a doubt it was Berta, with her smooth dark hair and her large brown eyes. It was a picture of her head and shoulders only, and Thorn had caught the secret smile that so often played upon her lips.
Thorn had been true to his word, Ronan saw, and had only drawn those members of the tribe who had not objected. “Here you are, Nel,” he said.
“Sa.”
Slowly they moved along until they came to the end of the back wall; then they turned to look at the wall to their left. The other walls had been uneven, and Thorn had placed his pictures according to the contours of the rock. But the left wall was very smooth, and as Ronan lifted his stone lamp he realized that it contained only one very large painting.
“Oh…” It was Nel’s soft breath as she came to stand beside him and saw what was there.
It was a painting of Ronan and Cloud, a painting of their two faces, the stallion’s positioned just above the man’s, as if he were standing at the man’s shoulder. Together, they seemed to be watching something that was out of reach of the painting.
Ronan looked at Cloud’s face. Arched, regal, and masculine, the eyes wide-set and large, the edges of the thin flaring nostrils dilated in faint alarm, his horse might almost be breathing, so real did he seem. Ronan felt tears sting behind his eyes.
Thorn, he thought. Thorn.
“You look alike,” Nel was saying wonderingly. “Why did I never see that before? You and Cloud look alike.”
Ronan tried to swallow around the lump in his throat. He glanced at his own picture. “Are you saying I look like a horse, minnow?”
“Your expressions are the same,” Nel said. “Look. Surely you can see for yourself what Thorn has done.”
“Sa,” he said after a moment. “We look like arrogant bullies, the both of us.”
He felt her arm come around his waist. He never had to tell Nel what he was feeling; she knew.
“He should not have died,” Ronan said harshly.
“What he did in this cave will remain,” Nel said. “Long after you and I are dead, Ronan. Long after the Tribe of the Wolf is but a memory, this cave, and what Thorn did here, will remain.”
He thought about that, thought about what might happen, many many years hence, when strange people might come into this cave and see these pictures upon the walls.
“He drew for the joy of it,” Ronan said. “He did not do it for a hunting ceremony, or for any other reason save the pure joy of it.”
“It is in my heart that you can see that in the pictures.”
A small voice came from the outer chamber, “Mama?”
“Dhu,” said Nel, and she moved hastily toward the doorway. “I am coming, Culen. Stay where you are, please.”
“Where Dada?” Ronan heard the child say next.
“He is coming too.”
With one last look at the picture upon the wall, Ronan turned away and moved to rejoin his family.
To Patty, best of sisters, best of friends
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my appreciation to two particular friends who were of invaluable assistance to me in the writing of The Horsemasters.
First, thanks to Edith Layton Felber, who helped me sort through a chaos of ideas and characters to come up with the shape of a novel.
And I would also like to acknowledge Elsa, my beautiful bay thoroughbred mare, whose shadow stands behind all of the horses in this book.
Afterword
The catalyst for The Horsemasters came from Paul Bahn, the English archeologist who has written in several places of his suspicion that humankind’s partnership with horses might have begun earlier than most historians presently think. Bahn points out a number of Cro-Magnon engravings and pictures in which the horses appear to be wearing harnesses, as well as some pieces of portable art taken from the cave of Le Mas d’Azil, where there are numerous horseheads that seem to be wearing some kind of a bridle.
&nbs
p; One other fascinating piece of evidence Bahn cites to buttress his theory is the fossil of a horse’s tooth that he found in the Begouen family collection. This tooth, dating from about thirteen thousand years ago, bears two transverse polished grooves, which seem to represent a variation of normal cribbing wear. As any horseman knows, cribbing (wood chewing combined with sucking air) is a vice peculiar to horses kept in captivity; it never occurs when they are running free.
In the words of Bahn, “…there has never been a valid reason for rejecting a priori the idea of close animal control in the late Paleolithic, and indeed there is a body of very varied evidence in favour of such a view; on this basis I consider it perfectly feasible—even likely,—that some human groups in the later part of Wurm (and possibly even earlier) travelled with pack-animals, on horseback, or in transport harnessed to horse or reindeer” (Pyrenean Prehistory by Paul Bahn).
* * * *
Throughout history, whole civilizations have changed because of the horse. People who were once sedentary suddenly found themselves masters of space. Distances dwindled, and settlements were perceived not as homes but as springboards for endless plundering.
This particular kind of horse mentality is relentlessly male; the possession of horses conferred power. From the Bronze Age Kassites, to the Hittites, to the Scythians, to the cavalry of Alexander the Great, horsemen rode over the world. Central Asian horsemen called Huns challenged the power of Rome, and Genghis Khan and his Mongol army conquered much of Asia and Europe. In our own country, the introduction of the horse rapidly transformed the Plains Indian from a subsistence farmer into a buffalo-hunting warrior.
The coming of the horsemen, then, is one of the most ancient of themes, and, considering Bahn’s evidence, I decided to explore it in this novel.
* * * *
The setting for The Horsemasters is the Pyrenees mountains some thirteen thousand years ago. Anthropologists call the people of this time Cro-Magnon, and their culture is called Magdelenian.