The farmers were sturdy people, deep-chested, with broad foreheads and cheekbones and ruddy cheeks. The color of their hair ranged from Scythian brown to Kelti blond; they could have belonged to either people. Women worked beside their men in fields of beans and barley, calling to one another in cheerful voices. When Epona caught snatches of their words she did not recognize the language.
“What people are these?” she asked Kazhak, but he was in no mood for questions and did not bother to answer her.
Kazhak had hunted since earliest boyhood. He was keenly sensitive to the interplay between predator and prey, and now he felt himself being hunted by something cunning and dangerous. It was an unpleasant sensation. He had not been able to identify the nature or location of the hunger; he only knew, with atavistic certainty, that something was stalking him, moving ever closer.
He had to get back to his familiar territory, his Sea of Grass, before the thing caught up with him.
His tension was contagious. Epona began to feel anxious without knowing why. Perhaps, she thought, it was because she was so far from home, and moving farther away with every footfall of the horse. Better not to think about it, then; better not to make herself miserable summoning up happy recollections of the Blue Mountains, her friends, everything she had known and loved and left so carelessly, as if her headlong flight were a children’s pretend-game that could be undone nextday.
It could not be undone nextday. Nextday there would be only the Scythians, the horses, and whatever was waiting for her on the Sea of Grass.
That night the sky was clear and the stars were bright and close. The Scythians rode until darkness forced a halt, then stopped for sleep in the lee of a hillock surmounted by windgnarled trees.
Everyone seemed to have trouble sleeping. Epona could hear the men talking among themselves in low voices. The night grew darker, with a purple-black cast and a dusty-sweet fragrance peculiar to the region. Epona had begun to see a certain beauty in the undulating plains, where once she thought only mountains were beautiful. But this was a new aspect of the earth mother, to be cherished and revered, and it was right she should learn to appreciate it, she told herself.
The Scythians did not see the beauty of the night. Kazhak was asking Dasadas, “Have you seen it since we stopped?”
Dasadas nodded his head in the negative gesture. “No. But there is howling, beyond that gully, coming closer.”
“Take your bow and kill it, hunt and kill before it kills us,” Kazhak advised. “You can see enough, the night is clear and your eyes were trained on the Sea of Grass. Take Basl with you.”
He and Aksinya waited. Epona turned from side to side, annoying the gray stallion, and tried to sleep. She wondered what the men were talking about so softly.
Suddenly Kazhak clapped his hands together. “Hear! The arrows of Dasadas are singing!”
They waited again. The other two Scythians returned to the camp with empty hands.
“You saw it?” Kazhak asked eagerly.
“We saw something. It looked like wolf, silver-colored wolf. Biggest wolf ever. We shot arrows at it from very close.”
“Then you killed it, is it so?”
They hung their heads, ashamed. “No. We did not kill it. We shot but the wolf did not fall. It ran away. Our arrows seemed to go right into it but it ran away, and the arrows are gone too.”
Kazhak could only stare at them. “You lost wolf? And good arrows?”
“It must be badly wounded,” Basl offered.
Kazhak thought about this. “If it is wounded, it will not bother us tonight. We rest. Tomorrow we leave here and leave hurt wolf to die.”
He spoke with more confidence than he felt. The wolf—or whatever it was—had been following them for days, behaving in a manner unlike any animal he had known, hiding, skulking, but always narrowing the distance between it and them. They had all caught fleeting glimpses, but no one had seen it clearly. They just knew it was there.
And they had not been able to kill it.
He lay down beside Epona and put his arms around her.
“Was there a wild animal near the camp?” she wanted to know. “Did the men kill it?”
“Scyth great hunters, never miss,” he replied. Her body comforted his; the way she lay against him made him think her trusting and submissive. He was a man, he could take care of her. He was a Prince of the Horse; he could take care of all of them.
Feeling more sure of himself, he began rubbing his body against hers and caressing her with his hands. This time she welcomed him with enthusiasm, allowing herself to be enveloped by the delicious new feelings throbbing through her awakened body. When he entered her she was moist and ready for him; she was almost demanding, and she took from him hungrily, feeding on the horseman’s passion.
The women around the lodgefires had been right. The second time was much better.
Afterward they lay with their bodies fitted snugly together. Her back was to him and his arms clasped her so closely his breath stirred the little curling hairs at the nape of her neck. It was hard to remember how it had felt to be two separate people with space between them.
Epona thought, This is how it is in the otherworlds where there is no passage of time and no sense of the body. This lovely warm floating, so complete, so satisfied …
The brilliant stars wheeled above them.
In the darkest part of the night Kazhak whispered her name, just once. In her own language, not his, he called her beautiful.
Dawn found them on the move again. Everyone seemed to have rested better and awakened refreshed—perhaps it was because the predator had been chased from camp. They were all in a better mood. Basl actually spoke to the young woman when he set aside her share of the morning’s meat, and Epona smiled at him, amused by the quick way he ducked his head to avoid meeting her eyes.
Even the gray stallion seemed happier. He nickered and pawed the ground, curving his neck into a graceful line of controlled energy, urging them to mount and ride. Ride!
A cool wind blew at their backs, pushing them eastward. For the first time, Epona felt no stiffness in her joints, no soreness in her muscles as she straddled the gray. This was good riding country; Kazhak rarely had her walk now, and she was glad of it. Her body felt oiled and new, perfectly blended into that of the animal beneath it. Her reflexes had learned to match themselves to those of the horse and she sat with easy grace.
She no longer bothered to braid her hair; her hair style could have no meaning to the Scythians anyway. Now it floated around her face and the wind blew long strands of it forward over Kazhak’s shoulders. He turned and looked at her with a smile in his eyes, and she smiled back.
“Kelti gold,” he said.
The horses cantered over springy earth. There was a glory in riding. The human became part of the animal, attached by invisible wires, muscle connected to muscle and bone merged with bone. Epona felt the strength of the stallion become her strength; its speed and grace were hers, too. She sat on the powerfully thrusting haunches with her head thrown back and her eyes closed, not thinking, just feeling, light and free.
Free. This is what it is to be a horseman.
The day assumed the mood of a festival day. Kazhak was willing to talk again, and he told Epona the names of the plaqts they saw, teaching her the Scythian words for them. He identified the many animals glimpsed at a distance, the foxes and roebucks and eagles, the herds of dangerous wild pigs. He spoke of creatures they would see farther east, of deer with long backswept horns and big cats like the lions on Hellene pottery.
Kazhak enjoyed having someone at his shoulder to whom he could talk when the mood was on him. Epona was interested and quick-witted; the questions she asked made him think new thoughts and look at things in new ways.
He was aware that his men disapproved of her, and this made him perversely kinder to her, almost flaunting the girl in their faces, showing them he was the leader and could do as he pleased.
Epona began to feel a sma
ll sense of power herself. This was more than an escape, this was a new beginning for her, the start of a life unlike any woman of the Kelti had known before. And it was her very own, chosen by herself. She determined to drink it to the bottom of the cup.
“Do you suppose I could have a horse of my own?” she asked Kazhak.
The Scythian snorted. “Women do not ride horses.”
“But I am riding a horse right now,” she pointed out. “And I could handle one by myself, I know it. I think I could even ride this one without you.”
Kazhak scowled. “Women do not ride horses!” He considered the subject inarguable.
The horses slowed to a walk and Kazhak commanded Epona to get off and give the gray stallion a rest. He looked down at her tawny head in wonder. Woman, thinking she could manage a horse! What would his men say if they heard such a wild suggestion?
He chuckled to himself, thinking of it.
Epona walked at the stallion’s shoulder, stroking his neck from time to time. The horse had fully accepted her as a companion; he rolled his eye in her direction or slanted an ear toward her to pick up the sound of her voice. A bond had been established between them as Epona had once formed a bond with the cartponies of Toutorix. But those had been very different animals, with their slow reflexes and placid geldings’ thoughts.
The Scythian stallion was as quick as starfire, his attention flickering here, there, everywhere; his curiosity a match for Epona’s; his passion always simmering beneath his silky hide. The horses of the nomads were exquisitely sensitive in comparison with the stock of the Kelti. The gray stallion responded to every mood of his rider, like an extension of the human body. He could prance and rear in a fine demonstration of defiance, then calm at once and thrust his muzzle into Epona’s palm, nuzzling for the clover she pulled for him.
The horse was an emissary to her from the Sea of Grass, making Epona feel more alive than she ever had before. Watching him, she thought the Kelti had nothing that could compare with this Scythian treasure.
But when they camped and ate the unseasoned meats and chunks of indigestible bread the Scythians carried, Epona thought with longing of the Blue Mountains. Her tastebuds remembered the wide variety of food she had taken for granted, and the equally wide variety of ways the Kelti had for preparing the food. Not just burned on the outside and raw on the inside, like the game the Scythians sometimes shot. Kelti meat had been roasted, boiled, simmered in broth, buried beneath the glowing coals of a firepit, browned in goat’s butter, steamed in wet leaves … Mutton and lamb and venison, hare and coney and cheese pie, tender baby goat, roast suckling pig, stone-ground emmer bread and barleybeer, berries and honeycomb, fresh cress and fish from the lake, Kelti beans, boiled melde … And the seasonings! The omnipresent salt, but also the herbs of the country and the spices brought by the traders. Garlic and onion, peppercorns, varieties of mint, lees of wine, kinnamon and …
When the Scythians reached their home territory, she assured herself, they would eat better, too. It was not possible that their whole tribe subsisted on such miserable fare as the men carried in their saddlebags.
The land sank and became marshy; they saw blue herons and white storks, and the mud nourished tall weeds that Kazhak said, with contempt, were eaten by “those farmer people. Eat grass like horses.”
The plants looked green and juicy: Epona rode past them with wistful eyes.
They came to the Tisa, a smaller river than the Duna, low in this season, and forded it without difficulty. They rode and camped and rode again, and Kazhak entered Epona many times. Her pleasure increased with each encounter as her sensuality blossomed. The horse was part of it. His warmth kindled hers as she sat on the broad, muscular rump. She became aware, through the very pores of her skin, of the aura of the male animal—man, horse, man. Kazhak was sometimes a sexual partner, sometimes a preoccupied stranger, but the horse was a constant, glorying in his gender, neck arched with masculine pride, great full testicles glossy with health, hanging like ripe fruit between his thighs.
Riding the stallion she thought of Kazhak. Lying in Kazhak’s arms she imagined riding the stallion. It seemed to her that the two of them merged at times into one being, a statement of beauty and power that made fluid the dividing line between animal and human. She surrendered to the pleasure of being female to their male.
She came to accept the tastelessness of the food and the hardness of the ground on which they slept. Such things were merely a part of the life, the sun and the wind and the riding, riding …
They came to a deeply rutted road beside a dry streambed and found the path already occupied by trading wagons piled high with goods. It was a small train, and this time Kazhak did not hesitate to ride forward and salute the leader. The first wagon was driven by a long-skulled, fine-featured man with dark hair and the unmistakable look of a Thracian. Once Thracians had sat with Toutorix around the feasting fire in the Blue Mountains; Epona and the other children used to sneak close to the fire, watching them, mimicking the way they walked and the cadences of their speech.
Sell you as slave to the Thracians, Kazhak had threatened.
Chapter 17
The wagoneers wore hooded felt cloaks, pushed back from their shoulders now because of the warmth of the sun. They had only a few wagons, but in true Thracian style they carried as much music with them as they could afford: a lone lyre player who rode with the driver of the third wagon, strumming his instrument and singing the song of the road. He was not an inspired singer, and he had been on the road a very long time. The other men only occasionally sang with him now.
The traders had spears propped beside them in their wagons, but seemed to be without the usual contingent of armed outriders. They were making a desperate push for the nearest trading center, hoping to sell enough goods there to resupply themselves with guards to replace those they had lost on the journey.
Meeting Scythians was a piece of bad fortune, putting them all out of tune. But at least, the leader thought, there were only four men on the horses; perhaps they were no more prepared for battle than the Thracians. Perhaps they were just another band of weary travelers, anxious to get home. He saluted Kazhak as the obvious leader with an elaborate bow and courteous phrases of greeting. He added an effusive compliment about the gray stallion, and Kazhak replied in a cordial manner.
“Do you know that man?” Epona whispered at his shoulder.
“No, but is horse man,” Kazhak answered. “All true horse men are brothers.”
He began conversing with the Thracian in a rough approximation of the man’s own language, though without the musicality of vowels that made Thracian speech so pleasant. Epona had already learned that Kazhak’s gift for languages other than his own was rare among his people, who were suspicious of any foreign customs and ways, but it was a convenient asset for an exploratory expedition. Now she listened with interest, trying to follow the conversation as the two men discussed their animals, exchanging further compliments. She was able to understand more than she expected. Kazhak spoke admiringly of the pair of bay mares pulling the first wagon, and the gray stallion added his own softly nickered comment of praise.
The other three Scythians sat alertly on their horses, ready to follow whatever lead Kazhak gave them. The wagon drivers waited with equal tension.
The Thracian introduced himself as Provaton, nephew of a famed horsebreeder on the Struma. That explained his possession of wagon horses almost as large as Scythian saddle animals, rather than asses or the long-horned cattle sometimes trained to the yoke by southerners.
“Very fine horses,” Kazhak said again. “You want to trade?”
Epona sat rigid behind him. What did Kazhak have to trade for Thracian horses? He would never give up the iron swords, she was certain.
Provaton wrapped the leather reins around the bar provided for that purpose at the front of his box-shaped, four-wheeled wagon, and gingerly stepped down, with the stiffness of a man who has spent many days jolting along rutted
roads. He rubbed the small of his back and stretched himself, then approached Kazhak.
“What have you to trade?” he asked the Scythian. “And how would I haul my wagons home if I bartered away my good horses?” He kept his voice light and pleasant; this encounter must remain a friendly one, or he might never get home at all.
Before Kazhak could answer, one of the other Thracians called out, “What about the woman?”
Epona dug her fingers into Kazhak’s belt.
Provaton looked up at her as she sat on the rump of the gray stallion. A keltoi girl, by the looks of her; very fair. Young. Such creamy skin and blue eyes. The southern slave markets were always eager for such merchandise, though they rarely got their hands on one of the northern keltoi, who were a powerful people and known to prefer death to enslavement.
Provaton folded his arms and squinted up at Kazhak, inviting the Scythian to make the first offer. “What do you suggest?” he said.
“What you got in wagons?” Kazhak countered.
“Amber, furs, some woven wool. We traded copper and anise for it, and I have a good market waiting in Makedon.”
Kazhak’s brows drew down, hiding the expression in his eyes. “How much amber?”
Provaton was uneasy. You could never predict what a Scythian was going to do, and though a tenuous peace existed between the two peoples at the time, there were always attacks and skirmishes along the borders, and four Scythians might not hesitate to slaughter a merchant train of Thracians for their amber. His wagoneers were too tired and dispirited to fight well.
“Very little amber, very little,” he said hastily. “We were late getting north and the other merchants had been there ahead of us; we got the dregs. Even our furs are inferior this year. Mostly ermine, admired in Moesia and Thrace but very common among your people.”
“You know how it is on Sea of Grass?” Kazhak asked with sudden warmth.
“What man who values horseflesh does not? I, myself, have been as far as the great horse fair on the plain at Maikop; with my family I have bought many good animals from your people and loaded them with felt and furs to sell at home.”
The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn) Page 24