Sirona brought her husband his weapons, chanting in the traditional way as she presented them: “Your sword is sharp; your shield is polished. With my own teeth and the sweat from my breasts I have softened the leather of the shield strap. When you fight, fight well. If you die, die laughing.”
The first race was run, seven laps around the commonground, and Vallanos won it handily, beating his Scythian opponent, Basl, by an impressive distance.
Watching from the sidelines, Kazhak commented, “Boy has legs like deer.”
Epona was standing close to Taranis and the Scythians once again, both in her capacity as hostess and because she did not intend to let Kazhak out of her sight before he left the village. Now she told him, “Living in the mountains makes us agile.”
“Agile?” Kazhak stumbled over the word.
“Graceful,” she simplified.
For the first time since his accident, Kazhak summoned a genuine smile. “Graceful, yes! Like Kelt girl, is it so? Move like running water?”
He chuckled. Epona blushed, pleased.
The games progressed to mock battles. Taranis and his three men fought the Scythians, and under the order of the chief, Kwelon allowed Aksinya to nick his arm and draw first blood. It was skillfully done, for the Kelti would never have forgiven a chief who took their victory from them, but even so the Scythians were suspicious. Kazhak’s dark eyes flashed. “Do not make easy for Kazhak’s men,” he warned Taranis. “No more tricks.”
“No tricks!” Taranis assured him. What was it about these Scythians that kept forcing him into dishonorable positions? Kernunnos was right after all; they were a menace.
But soon they would be gone, and trouble with them.
As the games progressed in difficulty the villagers crowded around, cheering their favorites, making extravagant wagers as men took turns lifting boulders or hurling large stones and comparing the distances. The Scyths did indeed hold their own, and Taranis granted them no further concessions. None could come close to them in the competition with bow and arrow, where their skills were awesome. The yelling of the crowd rose in volume as the contest produced an increasing rivalry in the participants, and soon there were injuries and lost tempers on both sides.
The brawny, pale-eyed Scythian named Dasadas proved to be exceptional at wrestling, putting down three mountain men in quick succession. This exceeded the bounds the Kelti were willing to concede, even to guests; and there were angry words and the beginning of a sullen undertone in the voice of the crowd.
The elders approached Taranis. “The wrestling victory is always ours,” they reminded him. “If these strangers win it we are disgraced.”
“Send for Goibban,” Taranis said.
The smith was not in the mood to have further advantage taken of him, but he did not resist the authority of his chief. He approached the contest area naked, save for his brief plaid battle apron, and even in the gathering twilight the muscles were clearly visible beneath his smooth skin.
Epona looked at him coldly. She would not allow herself to think him beautiful, now.
The smith stepped to the center of the wrestling area to stand with Dasadas and Taranis. As referee, Taranis set forth the few rules governing the final contest of the day. He was determined to be fair beyond question, hoping to regain his reputation in some small measure before the Scythians rode away, carrying tales.
“Because Dasadas has already had three fights and the smith is fresh, I order that a handicap be placed upon Goibban,” Taranis announced. “He will fight with one hand only; the other shall be belted to his side, and should he free it, he will at once be declared the loser.”
Kazhak nodded. “Is fair. But do not bind the man, let him fight free. Dasadas can beat Kelt anyway, is it so?”
It was an act of courtesy matched by an act of courtesy, and the people applauded Kazhak. Only Goibban did not. He stood with his golden head down, quietly waiting for the signal to begin, and when he stepped forward to meet Dasadas he held his knife hand arm fixed against his side as if it were tied there.
Chapter 13
The two men went into a fighting crouch, circling one another with bent knees, eyes staring, each waiting for that moment of hesitation or acquiescence in the other which would signal an opening. Dasadas saw it—or thought he saw it—in Goibban’s face, and hurled himself onto his opponent like a lion leaping off a rock onto the back of a deer.
Goibban merely shrugged him off with an incredible heave of his body and stepped away. The smith turned, coming back into his crouch, arm still held against his side, weaving back and forth on the balls of his feet, waiting for the Scythian.
Dasadas grunted and leaped at him again.
Again the smith tossed him aside.
“Hunh,” commented Kazhak, not smiling now. He stood next to Taranis; he had been offered a bench in deference to his injuries and refused it with scorn. His thumbs were hooked in his belt and he watched the wrestlers through his heavy black eyelashes. Epona glanced at him, but he was not thinking of her now.
Dasadas had learned his lesson; he attempted no third leap. This time he ducked his head and ran forward like a butting ram, intending to slam into the smith’s belly and knock the wind out of him. Goibban did not move aside.
Sirona gave a little squeak and closed her eyes, then watched through parted fingers.
The army of pines marching up the mountainside beyond the palisade watched darkly, whispering.
The Scythian’s head butted into Goibban’s stomach with terrific force—and nothing happened. The smith did not even grunt.
Surprised, Dasadas forgot himself and straightened up, staring at his opponent.
Goibban’s cup hand arm seized him.
It was all over in a few blinks of the eye. Goibban whirled his opponent around in spite of the mighty efforts Dasadas made to resist him, then hooked his cup hand arm behind the Scythian’s chin and squeezed until the man’s eyes bugged from their sockets. The other struggled to reach behind himself and grab the smith in some way, but his hands kept slipping off Goibban’s sweaty skin. The crowd was yelling now, “Goibban! Goibban!” and the smith arched his back and flung the Scythian away from him. Dasadas hit the ground hard, too winded to roll and break his fall, and even as he gathered himself to get up he felt the foot of his opponent come down hard on his neck.
Looking toward Taranis, Goibban lifted his unused knife hand aloft in a clenched fist and the crowd went wild.
“Good fight,” Kazhak admitted grudgingly.
Epona felt a thrill of pride for the Kelti. Everyone had been so obsessed by these horse riders they had forgotten the grandeur of their own people, but now Goibban had reminded them. And Kazhak was applauding with the rest. Epona looked from man to man, wondering.
Kazhak turned away from the wrestling area and saw her eyes on him. He smiled at her then, not the quick habitual grin intended to disarm strangers, but the slow smile reserved for brothers, for intimates of the spirit.
It felt to both of them as if they had reached out and touched.
Disconcerted, Kazhak moved off and lost himself in the press of men around him, trying to push away an inner disturbance unlike anything he had experienced before. The fast, hard life of The Horse, a man’s life, beneath sun and stars, in clean wind, the tempo of the gallop, the slash of the sword, the sweet high singing of the arrow in pursuit of its prey—these things he understood. But to meet a woman’s eyes again and again, and feel as if she had walked inside his head … it was an invasion and he resented it.
It was a unique experience and it tantalized him.
As the sky darkened the feasting fire was built up again, and the Kelti assembled to honor their guests once more. Kazhak would have preferred to be sleeping already, pillowed on his horse’s neck, but first he must finish what he had begun. He gave a signal to Basl and the swarthy Scythian hurried away, soon to return with a bulky object wrapped in a blanket.
Kazhak had him drop it at the feet of Tarani
s. “The Scyth understand honor,” he said. “Kazhak promise you feast on stag; now you feast on stag.”
Basl stooped and unfolded the blanket, revealing the antlered deer that lay within, its heart stopped by his arrow. It was not a big buck, nothing like the stag Kazhak had thought to kill on the side of the mountain that morning. But it was sufficient to fulfill his pledge, and the Kelti appreciated the symmetry of the gesture.
If Kernunnos had been among them at that moment, he would have realized the pattern was wrenched irrevocably out of shape.
“Taranis and Kazhak even, is it so?” the Scythian inquired.
Taranis was sitting in the chief’s place, dressed in his finest tartan and wearing a massive gold armband from the Scythian treasure. He smiled broadly at Kazhak, once more playing the genial host. “Yes, we are even,” he affirmed. “Epona, bring us the feasting cup.”
It was a long night. Sometime during it, after the feasting cup had gone around many times, Kazhak left the fire and sought his horse. His eyes were blurry with fatigue. He did not see that Epona had gotten there ahead of him, and was curled up in a ball a little distance away, sleeping with her face turned toward the horses and her bearskin robe for a blanket. The Scythians could not leave without her knowing it.
The next morning, Rigantona awoke with a sense of having drunk too much wine and having endured a bad night. She could still see all that gold gleaming on Sirona and Taranis. Her mouth tasted the way feet smelled. The flesh of her face felt thick. She swung her legs off the bedshelf and looked around the lodge. The carefully banked fire was still alive; the younger children were still sleeping on their beds. Both Okelos and Epona were missing.
Alator yawned and began the long journey toward being awake.
“Where is everybody?” she asked him, jerking him abruptly into thisday.
The little boy sat up, digging his fists into his eyes. “I heard Okelos go out a while ago. I don’t know about Epona; I didn’t see her come in lastnight at all. Maybe she went to watch the Scythians; everyone does.”
Rigantona sniffed. She wanted the girl’s help in the lodge this morning. She dressed and went out to find her. The first person she encountered was Sirona, still sporting the Scythian gold and a belly swelling with the son or daughter who would soon enlarge the chief’s family.
“I hope you give birth to weasels,” Rigantona murmured to her in passing.
“I wouldn’t want to have children who looked so much like you,” Sirona answered mockingly.
Epona was probably with the Scythians, as Alator had suggested. Playing hostess. The thought pleased Rigantona. Sirona, with her pretty face and her fertile belly, did not possess an unmarried daughter who was willing and trained in the arts of making the stranger welcome. And it was that same daughter who would join the druii, vastly increasing the prestige of her family. There was nothing Taranis and his vinegarmouthed wife could do to prevent it. Hai!
Rigantona lost interest in retrieving her daughter. Let her stay with the Scythians; Rigantona was relieved that she herself no longer had to waste time and energy serving strangers. She would go to the squatting pit and then have a leisurely meal with her younger children. Perhaps even Okelos would stay busy elsewhere and not spoil the morning with his malcontent and tedious schemes. Perhaps this headache would go away if she could just lie down for a while.
As Rigantona was returning to her lodge, the Scythians were preparing to leave the village. Epona had been watching them since first light, hoping to get a chance to speak with Kazhak, but almost immediately a deputation composed of Taranis and the elders had arrived to make effusive farewells and supervise the packing of the iron onto the Scythian horses.
Kazhak was anxious to leave. He did not care to waste any precious daylight listening to these talkative people drone on and on. Hoping they would take the hint, he thrust his new sword—the sword that would have belonged to Taranis—through his belt and unhobbled his horse.
According to the tradition, druii came to wish the travelers safe journey, but Kernunnos was not among them. Uiska shyly presented Kazhak and his men with filled waterskins, and Poel informed them he would sing a song about them to the children.
“You tell stories to small people?” Kazhak asked in surprise.
“Of course. It is the responsibility of the druii to instruct the young in all those things they need to know and remember,” Poel explained. “Knowledge must be passed on. Do you not have teachers for your children?”
Kazhak looked puzzled. “They watch. They learn, or they die, is it not so?”
Poel was shocked. “All animals teach their young; our children are our future! They must be properly shaped.”
The Scythian argued, “They grow strong, ride well, fight good. Is enough.”
He was tired of dealing with these complicated Kelti. He hungered for starry skies and open plains. Heedless of the pain in his ribs he vaulted onto his horse and spun the animal on its haunches, scattering loose dirt. “We go now!” he sang out, and joy made his voice beautiful.
The gray stallion leaped forward, headed for the opening in the palisade and the road beyond. The other Scythians followed gladly.
Epona began running then. If she was very quick, she could intercept Kazhak where the trail almost doubled back on itself along a pine spur. She was sure the Scythians would be heading east, around the lake, rather than west to the Amber Road. The horsemen would be going home.
Thisnight the moon would be full.
She ran harder than she ever had in her life, skimming over the earth mother with the speed born of desperation. No one paid any attention to her. The young were always running somewhere.
She took a short cut long familiar to the children, following a narrow path past a solitary tree bent into the shape of a hump-backed man by its own deformed spirit. Nematona had taught the children to hang strips of bright cloth on the lower limbs of the grotesque tree to encourage it to feel beautiful, so its spirit within might be reshaped. As Epona ran past she saw her own contribution of last sunseason, a wide strip of blue wool now faded by the elements.
Bow down! commanded the spirit within suddenly, breaking a long silence, but she would not take time to obey. She ran on.
The path wound through a scattering of boulders, the ribs of the earth mother thrusting through her flesh, and then Epona came out on a little knob of soil overlooking the trail and there were the Scythians, riding toward her.
She scrambled down the slope and stepped into the road, blocking their way. She had to act quickly, without thinking, or she might lose her nerve.
Kazhak held up his hand to signal a halt. His dark brows were drawn into a line across his forehead; he was not smiling.
“What is?” he asked suspiciously.
“I want you to take me with you,” she told him, coming to stand at his knee.
Kazhak’s brows swooped upward toward his peaked felt helmet. There seemed no end to the astonishment of these Kelti! “Is joke?” he asked uncertainly.
“I am not making a joke; I am very serious. Please, take me with you. I want to leave this village; I want to get as far away as I can before dark. There is nothing for me here anymore.”
The Scythian shifted on his horse. His face revealed nothing. Unlike her people, he kept everything hidden behind those dark eyes.
“Why should Kazhak take you? You any good to Kazhak?”
At least he was considering the possibility. She recalled his comment about the Scythians’ finding a woman they liked: “take and go.” Her eyes sparkled, and she lifted one of her heavy braids for him to see. “The gold of the Kelti,” she said. “It is yours if you take me with you.”
To her surprise the Scythian laughed aloud. “You are not like other women,” he told her. He turned to his companions and said something in their own tongue. It sounded very harsh to Epona’s ears. The other men looked at her dubiously.
She listened for the spirit within, expecting it to tell her she was making a
mistake, but it seemed to be silent. Or perhaps she could not hear it over the beating of her own heart.
After an exchange of conversation among the Scythians, Kazhak addressed her again. “We must go now,” he said. “Not like this place. Too strange. Too …” At a loss for words he waved his hands in the air in the complex design, and Epona understood. “We go,” he repeated. His eyes swept her body, from her head to her feet and back again. His legs clamped the stallion and it skittered on the stony trail.
“May be you be some good,” Kazhak decided. He leaned forward and extended his hand toward her. “You come?”
She swallowed hard. “I come.”
The strong hand clamped on her wrist and she felt herself jerked forward. There was a heave, a struggle, and then she was lying across the horse’s withers in front of Kazhak, face down, her nose pressed against the stallion’s shoulder. Kazhak kicked his mount, and the Scythians galloped away from the village of the Kelti.
They left behind a village buzzing like a disturbed hive of bees. Taranis was deeply concerned about the implications of Kazhak’s threat, and even Sirona’s loving reassurances could not convince him the Scythians would not blacken his reputation among the outsiders.
Some of the elders, harkening back to former times of invasion and battle, had begun to imagine hordes of Scythians riding into the Blue Mountains, raping and pillaging now that they had seen the wealth of the tribe with their own eyes.
The druii, under the guidance of Kernunnos, were striving to formulate rituals to protect the tribe from dangers only the chief priest could foresee.
Kernunnos stayed in the magic house, nursing his grievances. He knew Taranis blamed him for all that had gone wrong, and in his turn he blamed Taranis for shortsightedness and greed.
The weight and shape of the tribe was ever present in the consciousness of the chief priest. Waking or sleeping he was aware of it; he was an integral part of the whole, a finger to the hand. It moved around him, corporeal, and through him, incorporeal, and he had no life of his own that was not bound in service to the Kelti. The mood of the tribe was his. He vibrated with its ceaseless energy; he ached with pains tribes-people had felt in the past and would experience in the future. At times the massed emotions of the Kelti would override everything else and he would stand transfixed, listening to inner voices and striving to pick his way through contradictory vibrations. Closing his eyes, lost to now, he existed in past and future.
The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn) Page 19