“Is another race called Budini,” he continued. “Good fighters, strong, fire-haired, blue eyes, get angry very easy.”
Epona thought of her own people, so many among them with blue eyes and red hair, and wondered if the bellicose Budini were a kin-tribe she had never heard of before.
“Who else?” she asked Kazhak.
“Agathyrsi,” he said, curling his lip with scorn. “All men sleep with all women, no man has woman of his own. You see? Savages.
“And is also Androphagi, very interesting. Man eaters.”
Epona looked at him with disbelief, thinking she had misunderstood his words. “What do you mean?”
“Cannibals,” he replied. “Is hard to believe, is it so? But is true. When man of Androphagi die, his family mix his flesh with mutton and all eat. Worse than all others, those people. Even treat women like men, equal.”
His voice dismissed the cannibals, condemned not only for their feeding habits but also for the unforgivable custom of accepting women as equal to men. As the Kelti did.
Epona’s good mood melted away. Kazhak did not notice. Once again he was launched on a pleasurable monologue, larding his dissertation on the savages with amusing asides and anecdotes, the sort of stories that had made Epona laugh earlier. He was so entranced by the sound of his own voice he did not hear her silence now.
Dasadas, however, was aware of the way her shoulders slumped; he saw her turn her face from Kazhak and go into a place of her own, inside herself.
The reins went slack on the brown gelding’s neck and Epona let him pick his own path, knowing he would wander a little distance away from the gray stallion. Geldings preferred to keep distance between themselves and the unaltered male. Before Kazhak noticed the widening space between them, however, Aksinya called his attention to a deer hiding in the tall grass within easy reach of their arrows.
Kazhak slapped his thigh, delighted with the discovery. Even as he took his bow and arrows from their case, the gorytus always worn at his left side, the deer realized its danger and took flight, and Kazhak and Aksinya pounded after it joyously, all else momentarily forgotten.
Epona did not care to watch them pursue and kill the deer. Suddenly she felt a deep desire to be alone; alone with just the horse and the prairie and her own thoughts. Kazhak was not watching, he did not care what she did so long as she did not interfere with the hunt.
Something wild and reckless seized her. She glanced once at the fleeing deer, which was running southward in great bounds, then turned the brown gelding’s head toward the north and clamped her legs against its sides. “Go,” she ordered, fiercely.
The gelding leaped forward in a headlong gallop.
Epona was not running away; she was not thinking of escape. She just wanted to run, to feel the strength of the horse beneath her and answer the call of the far horizon. To go and go, without limits. To run, as free as the deer, as free as the birds, faster than human could ever run, to gallop and gallop, obsessed with speed and freedom.
The gelding enjoyed the sudden burst of speed as much as his rider did. After the first few bolting strides he settled into a ground-eating gallop. The light weight of the girl on his back was as nothing to him. She had given him his head and now she leaned forward to urge him to go faster. He surrendered gladly to the same impulse that had seized Epona. They raced as one being across the prairie glorying in their flight.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kazhak saw them go, but it did not interfere with his pursuit of the deer, who had proved to be wily and fast. As a young rider he, too, had been unable to resist racing his horse. He knew Epona would run only so far before the frenzy subsided and she returned to him, walking her lathered horse. She had nowhere else to go.
It was more important to get the deer than to worry unnecessarily about the woman.
Dasadas had also taken up the pursuit, but it was not the deer he chased. He had watched Epona rein her horse aside and kick it violently; he had seen how easily she rode the speeding animal, as if she rode an arrow released from a bow. She rode like a man; no, better than a man, she rode as befitted a goddess.
Dasadas turned his own horse’s head toward the north and set off after her.
The brown gelding’s running rhythm was music to the woman who rode him. It reverberated through her body, as strong as the priest drum: da da dum, da da dum, da da dum. It was intoxicating, urging her to go ever faster. There seemed no limit to her newfound lust for speed. She lashed the gelding’s shoulders with the reins, shouting at him to go faster, leaning low on his neck, and he responded with an additional burst of energy.
But he could not sustain it. Gradually the momentum faded, and she knew it was over. The brown horse dropped back to an easy canter and Epona regretfully prepared to rein him in a wide circle and return to the others.
Then she heard the tattoo of hooves behind her and looked over her shoulder. Dasadas, his face as dark as fury, was riding down on her, whipping his horse. She felt a flash of fear. Kazhak must have misinterpreted her action and sent this man to capture her before she could escape.
She would return willingly, she had never intended otherwise, but she would not let Dasadas drag her back like a runaway slave. She leaned over her horse’s mane and called on the brown gelding for new strength with which to outrun their pursuer.
Dasadas saw what she did. She was trying to flee him as the deer fled Kazhak. But Kazhak would get the deer, and he would get the woman. He would have her; he would have her now; he would possess this being who filled his thoughts and made his brain whirl with foolish dreams. He, Dasadas, deserved her. Kazhak, who was negligent and had bad judgment, did not.
He put to use the skills developed through years spent in the saddle, matching every rhythm of his body to that of his mount, and began to close the gap.
Epona glanced back and saw Dasadas gaining on her. She lashed the brown gelding with the reins but he had nothing more to give. His rider watched, despairing, as the young Scythian drew abreast of her and guided his horse close to hers. He reached across the space between them and caught hold of her reins, jerking the brown gelding’s head against his knee.
Epona fought him; she struck at his face with her fists and called him by the names Kelti women reserved for men they despised, but he hung on grimly, forcing her horse to a halt.
The spirit within her made a small mourning for the beauty of the ride, so cruelly cut short.
Dasadas seized Epona and pulled her off the horse. She fell to the ground between his mount and hers and he fell on top of her, already tearing at her with iron fingers.
The horses shied away.
Chapter 20
She tried to fight him off, but the fall had knocked the wind out of her and she had trouble summoning the necessary strength. Dasadas was very muscular and very determined.
Her body and spirit had accepted Kazhak; she had no desire for Dasadas and no intention of submitting to him. She writhed beneath him, trying to get her knee up into his belly. Then she heard the words he was mumbling.
“Tell, tell, tell,” he panted.
“What are you saying?” She brought one arm up at an angle between them, bracing herself so that her elbow kept his chest from hers, but he shoved her arm aside and threw his whole weight on her, pressing her into the earth.
“Tell!” he commanded.
His face was directly over hers, staring down with wild eyes. His features were more finely proportioned than Kazhak’s, his brown beard was softer, his lips were fuller, but there was something hopelessly hungry in those eyes that alarmed her. She made her body as rigid as possible to show him she was unwilling to accede to his demands, whatever they might be.
Dasadas made a mighty effort to summon the few words of the Kelti language he could remember, so the woman would understand what he wanted. She had to understand, and give it to him: it was more important than her body, which he could so easily take.
He wanted to be given access to her magic.
His defeat at the hands of Goibban the smith had humiliated Dasadas, and he had been further embarrassed by his own fear of the strange giant wolf that followed them and killed Basl. It was as if his manhood had been under attack since his first meeting with the Kelti, and he was anxious to make up for his loss of prestige in his own eyes by acquiring a special attribute, something that would elevate him to a new plane of self-respect. He would possess the magic woman and her secret. He would have something very special. She must tell him how she had done it.
“Horse,” he said, spraying her with spittle in his eagerness to get the words out and be understood. “Horse dead.” He could not think of the word for sick. “You. Fix.” He glared at her. She must know his thoughts; she was magic.
Epona was baffled. Had one of the horses died, and did he think she could bring it back from the otherworld? She struggled to raise her head and caught a quick glimpse of his mount and hers, grazing together a few paces away, alive and well. What did he mean, then?
He saw the confusion in her eyes and it enraged him. How could she give it to him if she did not understand? Could he acquire the magic merely by possessing her body? But no—if that were possible, Kazhak would already have done so, and being Kazhak he would have bragged about it.
Dasadas had brought down a tremendous trophy from the chase but did not know how to take advantage of his prize. There was both fury and frustration in the face looming over Epona’s. Muttering inaudibly, he began tearing at her clothes, determined to have at least that much of her.
Epona was better equipped to deal with a simple physical assault than with an incomprehensible demand. Throughout her childhood, she, like all the girls of the Kelti, had practiced the skills of battle with the boys, against the day they might have to fight beside their husbands. It was an accepted part of education, and if she did not love it as Mahka did, she had at least been very good at it. And now she had recovered her wind.
Dasadas was surprised at the way she fought him. She was stronger than she looked, the slender Kelti woman, and she wrestled with him as a man would have, understanding the advantages of momentum and timing. Her determination was the equal of his; she would not surrender. Dasadas enjoyed that. He felt the quick nervous energy flooding her body, like an unbroken colt’s on a spring morning, so full of itself that it would buck wildly rather than submit to a rider. He clamped her with his knees and gritted his teeth, preparing to ride her anyway. His face reflected his arrogant certainty.
Epona pretended to relax, just long enough for him to start fumbling with his clothes, thinking that she had given in. Then she lunged upward suddenly, gouging at his eyes with her thumbs.
She caught him off balance and broke his leg grip. One hand still clamped her shoulder but he had to take that away to defend his face, and all the time she was shrieking at him with the war cry of the Kelti. She was no longer beneath him; she seemed to be swarming all over him, jabbing at him, punching him with a deadly knowledge of his most vulnerable areas. Before the startled Scythian could recover himself she twisted like an eel and rolled clear of him, then was on her feet and running to her horse.
A leap and a swing of her leg and Epona was safely atop the brown gelding, jerking his head up, pulling him away from the grass. She glanced back and saw Dasadas gaping at her with astonishment. He held out his hand as if it could still close on her, but she kicked the horse and rode back to Kazhak.
Dasadas stared after her. He felt as if he were wracked by a fever. The energy the Kelti woman had summoned to fight him had excited him more than any experience he had ever had with a woman. He could still feel the touch of her body along the length of his; his flesh ached with the memory.
He got slowly to his feet. He wanted her more than ever. His body was throbbing with the lust he had thought to relieve between her thighs. And also, more than ever, he was awed by her, and afraid of her; afraid of something so far outside his experience. Epona, Epona.
Gradually becoming aware of the bruised areas where she had pummeled his body, he went to retrieve his horse.
Kazhak, busy skinning the deer, looked up to see Epona riding toward him at a sedate walk. Her horse had sweated but the lather was dry, causing the shaggy, incoming winter hair on his neck to lie in a pattern of waves. The face of the girl was cool, detached. She barely gave Kazhak a nod of greeting before turning away to care for her horse.
Kazhak had been returning with the slain deer when his sharp eyes saw Dasadas and Epona in the distance. He had watched, immobile, as Dasadas caught the girl and pulled her from her horse. He had thrown down the deer and grabbed his sword, even as Aksinya laid a restraining hand on his arm, but then they had both seen, in the far distance, the small figure of the Kelti woman elude the man and head back toward them.
By mutual wordless consent they had returned to the job at hand, preparing the welcome fresh meat to be added to their provisions for the remainder of the journey.
Kazhak watched from underneath his heavy eyebrows as Dasadas returned alone, looking like a thundercloud. There was a bruise starting to grow purple just underneath his eye and he had a split lip.
Kazhak smiled to himself and said nothing, but that night he offered Epona the deer’s liver as well as the choice part of the haunch. Dasadas received his meat last, a stringy portion that once would have gone to the woman.
When he glowered at Kazhak he met a frosty stare in return. “No more,” Kazhak said, and Dasadas knew what he meant. “She will go into tent of Kazhak. Remember that.”
“Her horse ran away, had to be caught,” Dasadas said.
Kazhak was not fooled. “Her horse did not run away. She rides better than you.”
Dasadas was treading on dangerous ground now, and he knew it. But he could not help himself. Even with Kazhak facing him, glowering at him, he could not keep his eyes from cutting swiftly sideways to steal another look at Epona. Kazhak saw that glance. “She will live in Kazhak’s tent,” he said again, and he doubled one fist and pounded it onto the open palm of the other to drive those words home. Dasadas hardly even heard them. His ears were still filled with the sound of Epona’s voice.
When Kazhak and Epona stretched themselves on the ground for sleeping, Kazhak took her fiercely, again and again, so that no one could misunderstand. Even as she lay beneath him, galloping with his body to the rhythms of pleasure, Epona was aware that Dasadas was watching them from beyond the campfire, and she pitied him. Then the rhythm speeded up, and she forgot Dasadas altogether.
But in the cool gray light of dawn she reflected that bedsports were not as simple as they seemed. Other things were involved, aside from flesh and blood.
The next day they entered a region familiar to the Scythians, though Epona saw no difference between it and other parts of the steppeland. But Kazhak spoke more often now of his tribe, the herds, this and that familiar landmark; and even dour Aksinya seemed more cheerful than he had since the journey eastward began.
The sun was high overhead when they came to the first huddle of wagons and tents at the edge of a mixed herd of horses and cattle, and a small flock of sheep.
Some wagons were mere ox-drawn carts, but several were large enough to support domed tents set up on their beds. These tents, and others set up independently on their own frames upon the earth, were made of overlapped layers of heavy felt, lashed together onto collapsible supports of birch and willow. Epona would later learn that the felt was made by wetting and pounding together wool and animal hair until the fibers interlocked, then waterproofing the material further with grease. The result looked flimsy to the eyes of a Kelt accustomed to timber lodges, but it was sufficient, even for the savage climate of the steppe. The women could set up or dismantle such tents in less than half a day, while their men attended to the herd, and in the larger wagons a family could live with a degree of comfort within snug felt walls.
Epona noticed that the biggest wagon was equipped with a horse hitch and a team; not the leggy saddle horses th
e Scythians rode, but big, sturdy animals of more common breeding, large-headed like the Thracian horses, and obviously capable of more speed and maneuverability than any Kelti cartpony possessed.
Kazhak rode toward the most ostentatious tent to offer greetings to the leader of the band of nomads. Epona and the men followed at a distance, allowing Kazhak to take the brunt of whatever favor, or disfavor, would be shown. That was always the leader’s lot.
Kazhak was certain of a friendly welcome here, however, and he advanced with a grin already spread across his face like the rising sun. Epona followed him closely, turning from side to side to look at the domestic arrangements of the nomads, unlike anything she had seen before.
Whole families seemed to live in, and under, the wagons, and the faces of children peeped shyly out through gaps in the covering. Older children, windburned boys with unkempt hair and darting eyes, abandoned their task of tending the goats and came forward to watch the newcomers ride into camp. The faces of these youngsters showed neither fear nor curiosity, but the inbred mistrust of strangers that they had imbibed with their mother’s milk.
There were no girl children visible in the camp, and no women to be seen.
As Kazhak approached the largest tent its owner rode toward him on a thick-necked chestnut horse. The two men roared a greeting at each other, jumped down from their mounts simultaneously, and strode into the tent together, arms around each other.
Epona had only a brief glimpse of the Scythian chief, and found it difficult to guess his age. Sun and wind and bitter winters tanned the hides of the nomads uniformly, so there was little difference between the young and the old. Even the ubiquitous wrinkles around the eyes were a result of squinting across grasslands, and as common among boys as men. This man’s worn crimson trousers were the color of drying blood, and instead of a felt cap he kept his hair out of his face with a browband of beaten gold worth a cartload of salt.
Other men were coming into the camp, shouting recognition of Dasadas and Aksinya, and soon the Scythians were surrounded by friends. But no one came near Epona. She sat alone on her horse, wrapped in her bearskin cloak and her dignity, and felt their eyes crawl over her like insects. No one spoke to her. No one spoke of her. They stared at her and waited.
The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn) Page 28