The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn)

by Llywelyn, Morgan

  Nevertheless, Kazhak intended to watch Dasadas very closely. The man’s arrows and sword would be welcome, but his attentions to Epona would not. Kazhak would spend the grazing season on guard against both specter and man.

  The last tents were struck, the last wagons packed, the last families moved away from the site of the winter encampment. Kolaxais’ women transferred the old man, tent and all, into a splendid wagon painted in brilliant blues and reds, fine new felts in place, trophy heads flaunted along both sides. In the grazing season even the han followed in the nomadic footsteps of his people, taking with him the choicest animals.

  And the shamans, who never left his side now.

  Epona looked forward to the seasonal trek with almost unbearable eagerness. After the stifling boredom of the camp, the wagons, the exclusive company of women, she would be on the move again, with things happening around her, fresh horizons unfolding. She was anxious to test her newly acquired skill with bow and arrow on the open steppes, and to watch the brood mares grow heavy with foal. She could hardly wait to see the colts of the gray stallion take their first wobbly steps on the Sea of Grass.

  It did not matter so much if the silver wolf followed her. He could do little to her but watch, as she lived thislife.

  Thislife, that would surely be better now, away from the encampment and the crowds of passive women.

  She would not be the only woman, of course. Kazhak’s other women, as well as the wives of Aksinya and Dasadas, would accompany them, but only Epona would know the freedom of the horse’s back and the open sky.

  The ground was not yet thoroughly dried out when the wagons began creaking across it, but that did not matter. Excitement infected everyone. Kazhak himself seemed in a better humor; Epona even observed him riding with Dasadas, talking brother to brother, as if he did not suspect the other man had looked at his woman with covetous eyes.

  Kazhak rode one of the young horses, and released the gray stallion to run with his herd, following the lead of a wise old mare who had guided herds before the gray stallion took his first faltering steps. Epona longed to be on her brown gelding, riding with the others, but she was needed to drive the wagon carrying her tent and household. She could mount a horse only when the herds were at peace, grazing; as long as the nomads were on the move she must sit in the wagon behind a pair of inferior draft horses, coarse-headed, slow-witted creatures. Sighting between their ears as she would sight along the flight path of an arrow, she could see the riding horses flowing gracefully across the steppe. They filled her vision and her heart.

  Now that there were fewer women to do the labor—and no watching shamans to be impressed—Epona was allowed her share of the chores of nomad life. Unless they were lucky enough to find wood, dung must be gathered and stacked to dry, to use as fuel. If there was a water source nearby, it was up to the women to fetch water for drinking and cooking. They also had to milk the mares and goats and take responsibility for the sheep, who behaved according to incomprehensible whims of their own and needed constant supervision. There was grain to be ground and bread to be baked, the leathery bread of the prairies, not the soft chewy bread of the Blue Mountains. Mares’ milk, fermenting in a leather bag, must be churned continually, a tiresome and repetitive task some of the women relegated to their older children. Epona, having no child, performed this task herself.

  She was aware that there was speculation about her narrow waist and flat belly, but Ro-An told her, “Is hard to have children. Women do not conceive easily among our people. You may wait long time for first baby.”

  Among the Kelti, she would not have had to wait so long. The gutuiters would have prayed the prayers, offered the sacrifices, given her the potions and compounds that encouraged fertility, but there were no gutuiters on the empty prairie. Only women more ignorant than she, watching her with bright and jealous eyes.

  To conceive, a woman had to lifemake with a man, and for many days Epona had used one pretext after another to keep from sharing bedsports with Kazhak. Her anger still burned strong within her. The Scythians had a strange aversion to a woman’s bleedingtime, so she had told him she was bleeding and thus kept him away for a while. A Scythian man would not lifemake with a woman he thought was “unclean,” a custom that amused Epona. What could be unclean about blood, the fluid of life itself? Among the Kelti, a woman undergoing her bleedingtime was treated with respect, even brought little presents and honored with special foods, to help call attention to her favorably, so the spirits awaiting housing would take notice of her.

  Among the Scythians she hid away in her wagon, letting no one see her face, and when the period was over she had to undergo purification rites. At least, Epona thought, sitting patiently as Ro-An scraped the cleansing paste from her skin, it gave one a good excuse for the nomadic version of a bath.

  But Kazhak would not be put off forever. While the herd was on the move he was kept busy, but when at last a good grazing site was located, with water nearby in the form of a shallow river, and the early growth of silver-headed grass promising abundance, he meant to return to Epona’s bed. He knew she had long simmered with anger, and he wanted that anger to be set aside. He was surprised by his own patience with her.

  Every time he looked at her he remembered the way things had been between them—the warmth, the laughter, the talking—and he was anxious to restore that sense of camaraderie.

  How strange it was that a man could feel that way about a mere woman! But of course she was not a mere woman.

  He had been sleeping close beside her wagon each night, willfully ignoring the tradition that required a man to sleep far away from a bleeding woman. But the night they reached summer pasture he stood watch over the combined herds, and sometime before dawn he slept in his saddle.

  And saw, in a dream, a huge silver wolf detach itself from the shadows and pad silently past the herd, its pale coat absorbing rather than reflecting the starlight. He watched, unable to move, as it slunk around the wagons of Aksinya and Dasadas, then stopped a little distance away from Epona’s wagon and drew its teeth back from its lips in a silent snarl. It did not advance any closer than the perimeter of the small fire Epona had kindled as soon as they stopped, but its specific interest in her wagon was obvious.

  Kazhak fought to arouse himself from his dream. It took an actual physical effort to raise his eyelids, to sit up in the saddle and look around. There was no wolf to be seen, only the herd, the wagons … the Sea of Grass, spreading forever under the stars.

  In the morning he spoke to Aksinya and Dasadas. They, too, had dreamed of the wolf.

  “Epona is right,” Kazhak said. “It has followed us; it does not bother the rest of the tribe.”

  “She has strong magic to draw it away from them,” Dasadas commented.

  Kazhak pondered before answering. “May be. Or may be it is one of us the wolf follows, brothers, is it so?”

  Aksinya and Dasadas exchanged glances.

  Kazhak continued slowly, thinking as he spoke. “The wolf followed us … long time. Long time before we first saw it, Kazhak knew we were being hunted. Kazhak could feel it. Now Kazhak thinks it has been after us since we left the tribe of Taranis and the Kelti. Why? What does it want?”

  “The swords?” Aksinya suggested.

  “Kelti can make more swords. Besides, it is a demon; what use has demon for swords? No, Kazhak thinks it comes for another reason. Kazhak thinks it has followed us because we took Epona The wolf means to punish us for stealing the woman.”

  “We did not steal her. She asked to come.”

  Kazhak sighed. “That may not matter to the wolf-demon.”

  Dasadas looked past Kazhak to the small cluster of wagons at the edge of their combined herds. The animals were avidly cropping the new grass just breaking through the soil; the women were spreading clothing on cord strung between the wagons so that sun and wind might freshen it. Epona was standing off to one side, watching, remembering the waterwashed clothes she had worn in the Blue Mou
ntains.

  Her slender form drew Dasadas’ eyes and held them. With an effort he looked away, before Kazhak saw the direction of his gaze. “You are saying Epona has not used magic to make the wolf follow us, and spare the rest of the tribe?” he asked.

  “Kazhak has begun to think the wolf would have followed us anyway. It is us he wants, that wolf. Basl’s blood was not enough for him.” Kazhak could see it clearly, now, and he was glad Epona had urged him to invite Dasadas to join them. They should make their stand together against this thing, because it would undoubtedly hunt them down separately otherwise. Together, perhaps they did have a chance against it.

  Aksinya said, “If wolf wants to punish us for taking Epona, why not just send Kelti woman back where she came from?”

  Kazhak whirled to face Aksinya. “No!” he thundered. “Is my woman, that woman! Kazhak does not send her away, Kazhak does not give her away, Kazhak does not share her. You understand? You both understand?” He looked directly at Dasadas for a moment. “We keep her. And we will fight wolf if we must. Is agreed?”

  They could not meet the savagery in his eyes. Both men looked down at the ground, shaking their heads. “Is agreed,” Dasadas said.

  Epona, he said in his heart. Epona. We will have to be very careful, Epona. But at least you are in my eyes every day. Perhaps that will be enough.

  It would not be enough, but he was willing to wait. A hunter sometimes had to be very patient, if he wanted to bring down a great prize.

  Life on the steppes in summer was, as Epona had foreseen, very different from life in the winter encampment. The bitterest weather was a time of huddling and surviving, of protecting the flicker of life until spring, but the coming of spring heralded the return of true nomadic life, a sweeping, unfettered existence ideally suited to the vast steppes.

  All nomadic life revolved around the livestock. The Scythians did not merely breed and ride their horses; they merged their lives with those of the animals to such an extent that they came very close to being the kentaurs of Hellene fable. Living, eating—even sleeping—on their mounts, they followed the horse in his constant search for better grass, and brought with them the cattle and goats and sheep upon whom their own existence also depended. Their women were occupied throughout the warm season with caring for these animals, making felts and curing hides and shearing the sheep of their thick winter wool, but the men gave themselves over, totally, to the horse.

  For the Scyth, in the summertime, nothing else mattered. Small groups of herders, such as that of Kazhak, formed little rings on the Sea of Grass, like raindrops forming rings on the surface of a pond. These rings widened and touched the other rings of other herders from other tribes. There was trading and boasting and contesting; horse races to determine the best breeding animals; a constant fever of excitement over breeding or foaling or training young stock. The days were long and filled with horses. The nights were starry, and filled with talk of the horse.

  Epona loved it. This is what I came for, she thought. This is what I always wanted.

  Kazhak had been deeply upset by the breach between them, though he had not let her see his unhappiness. Anger, arguments, yes; he could deal with those, knowing she would laugh and forget. But this latest quarrel had gone too deep for laughter and was too strong to be forgotten. Since learning she was not his wife, would never be considered one of the Scythians, Epona had shut herself away from him in every way. He missed her body, but to his own surprise he missed her spirit more.

  As he had foreseen, the twilights were very blue and lonely when he did not spend them in Epona’s company. His other women—Talia, Gala, Nedja, Ro-An—did not assuage Kazhak’s deep sense of loss. It was as if a brother had died.

  Something more than a brother. Something dearer, closer even; something he had not known existed until he was torn by its loss.

  He tried to win her back.

  As a gesture of goodwill he offered to let her ride any of his horses she liked, except for his stallion. Unique among the women of the nomads, Epona was not restricted to the wagons and the chores. Mounted on a good gelding, her bow and arrows in her gorytus, she was allowed to ride the perimeter of the herd with the men, keeping the horses within a manageable area, watching for strays, checking for illness or injuries.

  The other women might have resented Epona’s unparalleled freedom if they had desired any of it for themselves, but they did not. They could not understand how she could enjoy such masculine activities. Ro-An bemoaned the dark tan the Kelti woman’s fair skin was acquiring, after a long and painful period of sun-and windburn, and peeling. “Epona will not be beautiful,” she complained, urging the other woman to try a bleaching paste she had prepared, a smelly concoction whose preparation Epona had watched with misgivings.

  Epona was amused. “Why should you care if Epona is not beautiful? The uglier Epona is, the better for the other women, is it so?”

  Ro-An hid her face. “Ro-An cares,” she admitted, very low. “Is such white skin, so soft, so nice. You should take good care of it. Ro-An would be sad to see you get ugly.” It was the closest admission the other woman could ever make to friendship.

  Epona’s days were spent beneath open sky, but her nights were not. Rather than effect the more permanent arrangement of setting the tents up on the earth, Kazhak had ordered that all women live within their wagons, while he and the men stood guard nearby, or took turns watching over the herd. Kazhak kept one eye on Epona and one eye on Dasadas; he usually slept beside the front wheel of the Kelti woman’s wagon. But he did not try to enter; Epona was adamant about refusing him admittance. When he slept by her wagon, and her fire, he slept deep and without dreams; when he slept with the herd he sometimes saw the huge wolf in his dreams, and once it came so close to him he got a clear look at the terrible mutilation on the side of its head, where the ear had been torn away by the knife Basl brought with him from the village of the Kelti. Massive scar tissue had pulled the wolf’s face into a permanent grimace.

  The wolf prowled, but it did not attack. It seemed to be watching and waiting, just like the men. It seemed to grow more gaunt as time passed. Kazhak wondered how it fed.

  To avoid spending all her evenings alone, Epona sometimes went to one of the other wagons, either one belonging to Kazhak or Aksinya. Epona and the two wives of Dasadas did not care for each other’s company. Dasadas’ senior wife, Onyot, an angular woman given to angular gestures, had occasionally thrown her slops from the wagon just as Epona was passing by.

  It was safe to approach another woman’s wagon so long as her man’s saddle was not placed in front of the entrance. The first time Epona had seen Kazhak’s saddle in front of a wagon other than her own she had felt a sharp pain in her chest, surprising her, but it was not a pain she encountered often. Kazhak’s loneliness did not drive him to the wagons of the other women; it drove him instead to the back of the gray stallion, to sit silent for long stretches of time, gazing toward the horizon.

  Women’s talk, at night, in the wagons, bored Epona, it was so limited in experience or understanding. But it was easier to endure than being alone in her own wagon, looking through the flap at Kazhak’s lonely, proud figure in the distance, knowing she would not signal to him, thinking she could never forgive him.

  Bit by bit, like patching little scraps of leather together to make a cloak, Epona began introducing topics that interested her into the conversation of the Scythian women. At first she only spoke of medicaments and herbals used by her own people, and then she expanded that subject to include the stains and dyes women of the Kelti used to enhance their beauty. From that point, the talk drifted naturally, easily, to other styles and customs, and soon she found herself teaching an audience that was, if not eager, at least responsive. Some of what she told them they accepted; much of it they questioned, or derided. But at least they listened, and talking about her own people and her Blue Mountains lifted a little of the soreness from Epona’s spirit.

  She talked, long into
the night, of the multiplicity of spirits with whom her people shared the earth mother, and of the beneficence that could be extracted from these spirits with the proper rituals. She regretted that she could not explain all the rituals in detail, for she noticed Gala and Nedja particularly paying close attention and asking questions. Talia remained aloof, resistant to new thoughts, already crusted with the callus of passing time, and Ro-An would never think beyond the wagons and her hoped-for babies.

  But some of the other women might. And they might teach their children, as Epona endeavored to teach them. The customs of the earth mother might yet come alive in this strange, ignorant place.

  One evening, just as Epona was preparing to leave the wagon of Ari-Ki, Aksinya’s wife, the women heard a commotion outside. The men were shouting to one another with urgency in their voices, and the quick anger of men faced with a situation they are temporarily unable to handle.

  Ignoring formalities, Kazhak thrust his face through the entrance flap of Ari-Ki’s wagon. “Epona? You here? Is good; come with Kazhak. Quick!”

  His peremptory command left no room for argument. Murmuring a hasty farewell to Ari-Ki, Epona wrapped her cloak around her body to protect her from the lingering chill of spring evenings, and stepped from the wagon.

  All three men were waiting for her. “Is the big bay mare,” Dasadas explained. “Best mare of all horses in my care; has had a healthy foal every year, no trouble.” His words tripped over one another in their eagerness to reach Epona’s ears. “She was bred to gray stallion last year; now she tries to give birth to first horse of this new season. But something is wrong, Epona. Mare has been laboring long time, but colt will not come. She grows very weak now. She may die. It would be very bad omen to lose first foal of year. Kolaxais would never entrust another mare so fine to Dasadas.”