The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn)

by Llywelyn, Morgan

  The world had seemed dark; all at once it was bright again, the sunshine returned.

  When she reached the lodge she found Rigantona also thinking of something other than her dead husband—or so it appeared.

  Toutorix had been absent more than he had been with her; Rigantona was accustomed to that. What she found difficult to accept was the fact that he would never be with her again. She had grown used to having him at the back of her mind, available to be blamed for all the large and small annoyances of her life. Each evening he would enter the lodge, braced and ready for the tirade she would deliver. Toutorix was stone, nothing could hurt him, but that daily recounting of her frustrations had always made Rigantona feel better.

  Now he was gone. It was not his body on the bedshelf she would miss as much as that patient face, absorbing her venom and turning it away from herself. In some way her disappointments had been, every one of them, her husband’s fault, and now he had escaped her, taking his culpability with him. Whom could she blame after thisday?

  With the grim determination of the born survivor, Rigantona immediately began searching for new concerns to crowd out the old.

  As Epona entered the lodge, she saw her mother standing beside the firepit, holding a piece of woven wool to the light. “Look at this,” she commanded her daughter without bothering with a greeting. “I just noticed the effect the firelight gives through a rather loose weave; it blurs the colors, do you see? Beautiful. I wonder if there is some way to create that effect in the weaving process itself; what do you think?”

  “How can you be thinking about your loom at a time like this? You should be preparing the funeral feast for the lord of the tribe!” Epona told her angrily. Her anger was increased by the guilty knowledge that she, too, had been thinking of something other than Toutorix, on thisnight which should be his alone.

  She brushed past her mother and began the work herself, adding wood to the fire, heating a cauldron of water with hot stones, selecting foods for the feast. It was good to be busy; better than good. At a time like this it was imperative.

  Young and preoccupied with herself, she did not think that perhaps Rigantona felt the same need.

  The completed feast was a splendid success, roisterously shared by the kin, near-kin, and marriage-kin of the dead chief. Everyone agreed Toutorix had been granted a good death, quick and painless, second in desirability only to a hero’s death in battle. It was a sign of favor from the spirits, and the departed chieftain was envied.

  Toasts were being drunk to him in all the lodges. Even the charcoal burners in the hills, squatting beside their smoky ricks, red-eyed with lack of sleep lest the entire mound blaze up and be wasted, invoked the name of Toutorix and drank a cup of wheat-beer in his honor. “Share the feast with us, Toutorix,” they called out. “Eat red meat and drink red wine in your new place, and sing the songs of the brave!”

  Epona ate her food thoughtfully, chewing each bit almost as if it were the first time she had tasted roast pork, or smoked fish packed with cheese curds, or onions baked in bread. The meal was delicious. The death being commemorated made all the feasters more aware of and appreciative of life.

  As Epona remembered from other funeral feasts, many would share bedsports thisnight when the eating was over; a night of transition was best celebrated by lifemaking.

  Noticing his sister sitting withdrawn, a faraway look in her eyes, Okelos teased, “Where is our Epona? Not with us; look at her. Are you getting ready to go to the otherworlds again, sister, and search for Toutorix? Will you salute him for me?” Okelos had already drunk many cups of red wine.

  Epona whirled on her brother in anger. “I do not go to the otherworlds. Why are you saying that? Stop it, Okelos!”

  Okelos sat back with a smug expression. “You did go; you gave me your word you had done it.”

  Rigantona looked up from the suckling pig she was systematically demolishing. Was the girl trying to get out of it by denying her gift? It would not succeed; the chief priest had already verified the fact that Epona was, indeed, drui. And now was an excellent time to let all the kin know it, to say the words aloud and see the expression on Sirona’s face.

  “Of course you can travel to the otherworlds, my child,” Rigantona said sweetly. “Kemunnos himself has affirmed that you were born drui; you have a great future ahead of you.” Cutting her eyes to the side, she saw that Sirona was staring with a gaping mouth. Lovely!

  “Everyone is mistaken,” Epona argued desperately, feeling the eaten food curdle in her stomach. Doors seemed to be standing open in her mind, and swirling mists poured through them, circling around her, summoning her … No! It never happened. “I imagined it,” she told them. “I was wrong to brag to Okelos, but it is all a mistake, you must understand.”

  Rigantona’s eyes blazed. “How dare you deny such a gift! Are you trying to embarrass me in front of the nobles of the Kelti? What will Kernunnos say to such a lie after he has accepted you in return for the chief’s funeral ritual?”

  Okelos was aghast. He leaped to his feet and faced his mother, forgetful of the faces watching both, forgetful of everything but the betrayal just uncovered.

  “What about the election of the chief?” he demanded to know. “Epona was to go to the druii in return for their support for me, not just so you could lie unburned in a tomb with all your jewelry piled around you!”

  Epona was equally upset. She tried to get Okelos’ attention. “You traded me for the staff of authority?” she asked him. “Without even discussing it with me, as if I had no rights as a free woman?” But Okelos did not hear her; it was his mother’s answer he wanted to hear.

  Rigantona checked her words before they gave anything more away. The future was held in delicate balance right now; it was best not to incur her son’s anger until the council had made its decision. Kernunnos was right, Okelos would not be the best choice for lord of the tribe, but who could say what influences might affect the outcome of the election? Okelos could yet be chief … then she would have him for a son and a drui daughter. Everything would be hers, at last.

  “I asked Kernunnos to support you as part of the exchange,” she assured Okelos. That much was true. A late request, tied on at the end like the unimportant tail of the goat, but she need not tell him that.

  “Mother!” Epona cried, feeling hope shrivel inside her. Their dialogue had told her the bad news already; she had not only been offered, but obviously accepted. She threw herself down beside Rigantona, wrapping her arms around the woman’s waist in the supplicating gesture of a small child. “Please listen, I don’t want to spend my life practicing magic with the shapechanger. I can’t stand being near him. Surely you, of all people, understand that.”

  Rigantona firmly disengaged herself from her daughter’s embrace. “It isn’t as if you had to share bedsports with him, Epona. He is forbidden to use you for that, the gutuiters do no lifemaking. Besides, he …”

  “It isn’t bedsports that concern me,” Epona interrupted before Rigantona could complete her explanation. “I don’t want to have anything to do with Kernunnos, not ever, not in any way. He repels me; he has since I was a little child. And I have no desire to practice magic, either. It makes me feel … strange. I want a different kind of life; we have talked of this, don’t you remember? Don’t you understand?” She stared at her mother with her whole spirit naked in her eyes.

  Rigantona looked away, displeased that this argument was taking place before her assembled kin. They would think the girl had been taught no obedience. “It is done,” she said decisively.

  “But I have been to my woman-making; I’m an adult now. You should have pledged me when I was still a child if you meant to do this awful thing …”

  “Awful thing! You should be grateful to all the spirits that your gift was discovered at all, even if so late. I am still your parent until you marry, so we are both fortunate that I have time to make up for my oversight in not realizing your abilities sooner.” Trying to silence the
girl, she turned to Sirona. “Am I not lucky, marriage-sister? And is Epona not lucky also? Tell her for me, will you?”

  Sirona’s eyes shot daggers but they glanced off the impenetrable hide of Rigantona.

  “Toutorix said I didn’t have to do this!” Epona cried to the assembled kin.

  “Toutorix is dead,” Rigantona said complacently. “I am the only person with authority over you now. Besides, he never told me any such thing.” She raised her cup hand. The Hellene goblet she held was brimming with wine. “Let us stop this squabbling on a feast night and join in happy memories of Toutorix, shall we? It is unseemly to behave this way on his night.”

  The feasting continued until the morning star rose in the sky. Okelos enjoyed every moment of it, having convinced himself that Rigantona had truly arranged his election. She was his mother, after all; she would be loyal. And it was not too much to ask, even in addition to the new ritual.

  What a funeral he, Okelos, would have someday, after many long and splendid seasons as lord of the tribe. What piles of treasure he would take into the otherworlds with him! He should be grateful to Rigantona for assuring such an opportunity. When the feasting ended he fell into a drunken sleep on his bedshelf, still smiling to himself.

  After leaving the funeral feast for the privacy of their own lodges, the various other contenders for the vacant chiefdom discussed, with their wives and supporters, the unfair advantage Rigantona had taken. Offering her daughter to the druii in return for their support! The woman needed to be taught a lesson.

  After many heated arguments and more than one blow being exchanged, an agreement of sorts was reached. Taranis was the most likely successor to Toutorix; the others would throw their support behind him, and urge the council of elders to do likewise. Rigantona and that worthless son of hers would be thwarted.

  Taranis raised one last objection. “But if the spirits themselves desire Okelos to be lord of the tribe, what can we do?”

  It was Sirona who answered him. “Nothing. But I do not believe that is what the spirits want. Were you not listening tonight, husband? Rigantona traded the girl for the funeral, and, unless I am mistaken, support for Okelos was secondary. At no time did I hear that the druii had pledged it. Go to the members of the tribal council one at a time and talk to them, remind them of your abilities and the weaknesses of Okelos. Remind them that Rigantona tried to barter for the chiefdom. We will see who wins.”

  While these discussions were going on, Epona was also without sleep. She lay curled in a tight ball on her bedshelf, trying not to hear the sibilant voice of Kernunnos, whispering, cajoling, demanding.

  He and Rigantona and Okelos had worked together to weave their threads around her life like the web of some giant spider, capturing and devouring its prey. If they had their way she would not be Epona anymore, she would be something else, someone she did not know.

  She clenched her fists, holding on to herself, determined not to let go. Goibban will save me, she promised herself.

  The tribe could wait no longer to let traders back into the village. Supplies of barley and wheat were running low, and the women were complaining of a shortage of flax. The chief, lord of the tribe, negotiator with outsiders, must be chosen immediately. Already carpenters were preparing a ceremonial rooftree to be installed in the lodge of whoever was elected.

  The next day the elders convened and, after due deliberation, announced the election by unanimous vote of Taranis to be chief of the Kelti. Taranis of the deep voice. Taranis the Thunderer.

  “You failed me!” Okelos, in a rage, accused Rigantona. “I should have known you would do everything for your own benefit. You got what you wanted but made no effort for me.”

  “I did what I could,” she assured him. “You are still young, and Taranis is much older. He will not live forever. Your time will come …”

  He shook his head. “You’ve cheated me out of what was mine, Rigantona. I will never forgive you.”

  “I’m not any happier about it than you are. The new lord of the tribe will be inaugurated at midday and I will have to surrender the staff of authority to Taranis, while that wife of his watches and laughs out of the side of her mouth. Do you think I like that?”

  “I think it’s exactly what you deserve,” Okelos told her bitterly.

  The tribe assembled on the commonground to witness the inauguration of the new chieftain. Everyone who was able was expected to attend, a tradition that did not please Okelos. He dressed for the occasion in a battle apron and stiffened his hair with lime paste so it stood to a ferocious height. “They will regret not choosing me,” he muttered to himself, several times.

  Epona managed to be out of the lodge early so she did not have to accompany her mother to the ceremony. She did not want to be with Rigantona at all. She hovered instead on the fringes of the crowd, impressed in spite of herself by the splendor of the occasion, the first such inauguration in her lifetime. All the people wore their best clothing, their most ostentatious ornaments. Nematona had ordered swags of greenery draped around the stone, the bone of the mother where Taranis would stand to receive the acclaim of his people. Sacred fires had been lit around the perimeter of the commonground, and the people were chanting the song of thanksgiving; a new lord would protect the tribe.

  While Epona’s attention was fixed on the festivities, Kernunnos sidled up behind her. He grabbed her elbow before she was even aware of him and whispered, “Your training will begin at the next full moon, Epona. We will send for you. Or you can come to us on your own feet. But you will come.”

  He was gone like smoke, before she had time to do more than shudder.

  She saw her friend Mahka standing with Alator and went over to her. Mahka seemed so solid, so self-confident, and Epona now felt unsubstantial and vulnerable. She was being blown by a shifting wind; she longed to be sturdy and sure, like Mahka.

  In this one sunseason Mahka had grown half a head taller. She looked like a woman now, with powerful shoulders and a strongboned face. But the familiar childish grin broke through when she saw Epona.

  “Sunshine on your head! Come and stand with us for the ceremony, will you? It’s about to begin; soon Taranis will walk naked from our lodge, and Poel will bathe him and wrap him in the chieftain’s cloak. You can see the whole thing from right here.”

  There were congratulations to offer; Mahka now was a member of the family of the chief. But the other girl shrugged off Epona’s sincerely felt happiness for her. “What difference does it matter if ours is the chief’s lodge or not? I don’t care about that.”

  “You certainly should,” Alator told her. “Taranis will distribute the trade goods now, and that means your family will get first choice of the best things. You can have almost anything you want in return for his taking responsibility for us all.”

  Mahka’s gray eyes glinted. “All I want is to be a warrior. I want to learn to drive a war cart, like the two-wheeled ones painted on the Hellene pottery. I would swing my sword and lead hundreds of men in battle; I would die a hero’s death.”

  Epona was used to Mahka’s dreams. Once she had entered into them gladly, wrestling and fighting with stick swords, playing army to Mahka’s general, but now these seemed childish amusements. Mahka would soon be a woman; she would forget such things.

  “There are no battles to be fought here,” she reminded her friend.

  “Haven’t you been listening to your own brother? Okelos has been talking to some of the other young men of taking an expeditionary force into the lands of the Hellenes. There’s a lot of interest in it beyond the council fires. Men speak of the shortage of women and land, they say they will have to go outside anyway to find enough space to raise more families. You must admit the village has grown very crowded. With a band of warriors, Okelos claims he could establish new settlements and offer everyone better lives.”

  “Okelos just wants to go and rob the Hellenes,” Epona told her.

  Mahka made a negligent gesture. “If he is strong e
nough to take their treasures in battle, why shouldn’t he? The strongest man should always have the best, so he can support his family well and raise more and stronger children. How else is the tribe to prosper?

  “As for myself, I intend to persuade them to take me along. I can fight as well as any of them; you know that, Epona. I can do much more for the tribe by winning new lands than I can by marrying some stupid farmer in another tribe and raising a litter of puking children.”

  “Have your parents given consent?” Epona asked.

  “They will. And if they don’t, I’ll run away and do it anyway.”

  “You would disobey them like that?”

  “Of course. I’ve heard them say that you are pledged to the druii by Rigantona, and that you don’t want to go. You should run away too, Epona. You have to fight for yourself in this life.”

  How easy it is for Mahka to say that, Epona thought. Her body and her family were intact, her future was certain. Too many unsettling things had happened to Epona in too short a span of nights. She felt she stood on shifting salt instead of solid earth, and without that firm base it was not so easy to talk of fighting back.

  But there was Goibban. At least she had that, and that was all she needed. With the remaining shreds of her childhood’s faith she believed Goibban would be willing to marry her.

  “I’m not going to go to the magic house,” she told Mahka. “You’ll see; you’ll all be very surprised.” She smiled a secret smile and turned back to watch Taranis become the new lord of the tribe.

  Once he was bathed and properly attired in the cloak of a chieftain, with all the colors of all the families mingled in its weaving, Taranis followed the druii to the sacred stone. He watched impassively as the spirits of fire and water, earth and air, were offered their due sacrifice, and he promised them his people would continue to work in harmony with nature, that the bounty of the land might never be diminished nor its essential spirits insulted.