by Mary Mackey
That evening, after they had made camp, Stavan walked over to where Marrah was sitting and sat down beside her. He had noticed she had been avoiding him all day, and he was afraid if he didn't set things right with her now, he might not have another chance.
"I'm sorry I upset you this afternoon," he said. The words didn't come easily: a warrior rarely apologized to anyone, particularly not to a young woman, but he had enough sense to see that he was moving in a different world where the old rules no longer applied.
"You should be sorry." Instead of bowing her head when she spoke to him, she looked him straight in the eyes, a habit he found disconcerting. "I've been thinking all day about the things you told me, and the more I think the more upset I get. Slaves, wars, concubines! I've never heard of such things. I don't think you're so bad, at Least not as far as I can tell on such a short acquaintance, but your people sound horrible."
Stavan was annoyed. He'd come to make peace, not be attacked by a savage who didn't know what she was talking about. "They have their good qualities."
She gave a snort of disbelief that reminded him of a bad-tempered mare. "Well, if they do, you haven't told me what they are. From what I've heard, they should all have their left earlobes cut off." She made a slashing motion as if she were perfectly willing to do the cutting herself and then glared at him.
He stood perfectly still for a moment, and then he began to laugh — not just a polite laugh but a long, deep-bellied, red-faced laugh that left him half choked. He knew she'd be insulted but he couldn't help himself.
"What's so funny?"
"You!" he gasped. "The thought of you cutting off the earlobes of the Hansi warriors is funny. Great Han, is it funny! And I bet you could do it too. That look on your face would turn the bravest man to stone."
She rose to her feet. "Eat goat dung," she spat. "And when you want someone to translate for you, don't come to me."
He grabbed her arm. "Wait, please, I didn't mean to make you mad again. I seem to be doing everything wrong. I apologize for laughing at you. It was a stupid thing to do. I sat down here hoping we could be friends."
"Why?" She set her chin stubbornly. "I know I'm the only one who can understand you, but when we get back to the village, my — other and Arang will be able to translate for you, so you won't need my friendship."
"I want to be your friend because I think you're...interesting."
"Interesting?" Some of the anger went out of her chin. No one had ever called her "interesting" before, and she liked the sound of it.
"Yes. The way you think is different from the way I think, and I rind that interesting. When I tell you something about my people, I can never predict how you're going to react. Tzinta — the woman who taught me Shambah — was like that, completely unpredictable. You and Tzinta both" — once again he groped for words — "you both act like horses that have never been broken." He grinned. "And I've always liked a wild ride."
The sexual implications of the expression "wild ride" were lost on Marrah, but she could tell he was trying his best to be pleasant. Somewhat but not entirely appeased, she sat down beside him again. There was a small, slightly awkward silence.
"I want to tell you some good things about my people and the land I come from," he said. "There are good things, you know. For one thing, the Sea of Grass is incredibly beautiful." He held up his hand. "I'm not saying that it's more beautiful than your land, but I think if you saw it, you'd agree that there are few finer sights. In the spring it turns into a blanket of flowers that stretches as far as you can see. There's one flower in particular, a white one we call 'Han's Bride,' that grows as big as your fist, and others so small and delicate you could hold a dozen in the palm of your hand."
He went on to describe the Sea of Grass as it looked in winter with snow stretching from horizon to horizon, spoke of rivers frozen hard enough to camp on and a black sky filled with thousands of sharp white stars, and as he talked Marrah forgot she had been angry. Sometimes when he couldn't find the right word he stumbled and she had to help him, but except for such minor lapses, he spoke with eloquence and power, bringing the world of the steppes to life.
She was captivated. She had always wanted to travel and now, in a sense, she was traveling. He made her smell the scent of spring calving, the heat of midsummer, the dust that rose in clouds when the Hansi drove their herds to new pastures. Through his eyes she saw cattle standing patiently, their backs covered with the first snows of winter; leather tents pitched along clear rivers; the slowly spiraling smoke of cooking fires. She heard the laughter of the children as they played in the tall grass, the moan of the wind, the quail calling to each other at dusk. "Why, you're a natural poet!" she exclaimed.
He looked mildly embarrassed. "I've talked too much. I'm boring you."
"No, not at all. Tell me more."
"Really?"
"Yes, please."
"Then I'll tell you about my people themselves." He paused. "I realize you already know a lot about them that you don't like, but as I said, there are good things to know too. They're a brave people, the bravest in the whole Sea of Grass. Even the women of the Hansi are brave."
"Of course the women are brave." She looked puzzled.
Realizing he was once again treading on dangerous ground, he hurried on. "I told you the men of my people were warriors, and you were offended, but you see, we don't have any choice. We're forced to fight. We're surrounded by enemies, and if we didn't defend ourselves we'd be slaughtered. But we don't just fight like animals. We have a code of honor. When we go out in a war party, we go as a band of brothers, and even though we may quarrel back in camp, out on the steppes we love each other. My brother Vlahan may hate me when we sit around my father's campfire, but if I'm being attacked by a Tcvali warrior, he'll defend me even if it means a Tcvali puts an arrow through his heart. We're absolutely loyal to each other, perhaps the most loyal people in the world, and we never fail to repay a debt of honor.
"For example" — he pointed at Marrah — "if you saved my life, I'd be bound to serve you and do whatever you wished until I saved your life and won mine back again. If you asked for my favorite concubine, or even my wife, I'd have to give her to you. You could even demand my firstborn son, unless he was the heir to the chiefdom. The heir is sacred to Han, and so — "
"What did you say?" she interrupted.
"I said 'the heir is sacred to Han.' "
"No, before that."
"You mean about saving my life?"
"Yes, that part."
He smiled. "I said that if you saved my life, I'd owe you mine, but that isn't very likely, of course, since you're a woman and not — "
"But I did."
"Did what?"
"I saved your life." And as he stared at her in open-mouthed amazement, she explained.
"You mean you're the one who pulled me from the sea? I'd always assumed it was one of your men. You mean to tell me it was you?"
"Of course," she said briskly, hoping they could move on to other topics. Now it was her turn to be embarrassed. She hadn't meant to make so much of the rescue, and given the rough way she'd dumped him into the boat, she was glad he couldn't remember the details.
"But then" — he rose to his feet — "I owe you my life."
"No, you don't." She realized she'd made a mistake. "It was nothing; it...well, it was the sort of thing anyone would do, and — "
He suddenly knelt at her feet, startling her so much she nearly fell over backward.
"Get up," she begged. "What are you doing?"
"Marrah of Xori," he said solemnly, "I don't know if a warrior has ever pledged his loyalty to a woman before, but I pledge mine to you. Before Han and all the gods, I swear — "
"Don't swear anything. Just get up. Please. Everyone's looking at us."
" — to defend you against all enemies — " he continued.
"I don't want you to defend me." She was touched by his sincerity, but it was embarrassing to have him kneeling at he
r feet promising to protect her when all she had done was take him back to the village so Ama and Sabalah could look after him. "I'm flattered that you think I did so much for you, but it was really my mother and my great-grandmother who — "
" — to give my life for you." He was unstoppable. "My bow will be your bow and my spear your spear." He was reciting the oldest, most sacred vow of the Hansi people, but to her it sounded like the ravings of someone with a high fever.
"Be sensible!" she cried, frustrated past all endurance. "I'm not a hunter. What would I do with a spear? Oh, please, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you must see that this promise of yours doesn't make sense — "
"As long as I have a tent, you and your family will have a place to sleep; as long as I have food, you and your family will have food to eat, and from this moment until the moment I win back my life from you, I will obey you in all things." He grabbed her hands and kissed them ceremoniously. "I seal this vow with a kiss, and if I fail to keep it, may Han strike me dead."
She jerked back her hands and stared at him dumbfounded. She was flattered, impressed, annoyed, and more than a little awestruck by the seriousness of the vow he had just taken, and she couldn't help wondering if he was likely to keep it. "You're a madman," she said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry or do both simultaneously. "Why can't you ever act like a normal person?" To her surprise, he immediately got to his feet, sat down beside her, apologized once again, and after a few awkward moments started talking in a reasonable way. The rest of the evening he conducted himself like a man of the Shore People, or at least as much like one as he could, behaving so well that she began to wonder if she'd imagined him kneeling at her feet, and it was not until she had gone to bed — puzzled and more than a little mystified — that she realized he had acted normally only because she'd ordered him to.
They got back to Xori several days later, just before noon. When Arang caught sight of Marrah, he ran to greet her, followed by a crowd of relatives and a stream of whooping children. "Welcome home!" he cried, hurling himself against her and giving her a hug that nearly knocked her off her feet. "We've been watching for you forever. What took you so long? Did you like Hoza? Is it as grand as they say?"
"How many men did it take to lift the new Goddess?" Majina begged, pulling at her sleeve.
"Did you get to dance around the Tree of Life, Marrah?" "Did you go off into the forest with anyone, because Bere has been worrying that you did, and — "
"Slow down," she pleaded, laughing so hard she could hardly speak. Zakur and Laino were licking her hands and sniffing at her and every time she tried to take a step, one of the dogs moved in front of her to keep her from getting away. "I can't answer more than one question at a time." She pushed the dogs aside, gave Arang a kiss on the forehead, and folded her arms across her chest to indicate that she wasn't to be rushed, but the children kept asking more questions, hopping first on one foot and then on the other just as she had three years ago. "I'll tell you about Hoza as soon as I've washed up and had something to eat."
"You've turned into a grown-up." Arang groaned. "I knew I wasn't going to like you being a woman. How can you even think of washing up before you tell us about the food and the dancing? By the time you've finished dragging a rag over your face, I'll be an old man."
"And I'll be an even older one," Bere interrupted. He stepped forward and gave Marrah so long a welcoming kiss that it brought cheers and laughter from the crowd.
"He can't live without you, Marrah," Izirda called, holding up baby Seshi so she could see how much he'd grown in the past two weeks. "Bere's been pining," Belaun agreed. "He's been unbearable."
Bere, who was used to being teased, ignored the jibes. Stepping back, he searched Marrah's face anxiously for some sign that she had changed, but her smile was as welcoming as ever. "I missed you," he murmured.
She leaned forward and put her mouth close to his ear. "Then how about meeting me in the forest tonight?"
Bere nodded, and his face flushed with relief. There were so many young men at Hoza; he hadn't been able to sleep for thinking of Marrah in their arms.
There were more welcomes, more questions, until it seemed as if everyone was talking at the same time. Ama described Mother Asha's health ("excellent for her age"); Gorriska and the young men bragged about how they'd lifted the new Goddess Stone into place; dogs barked; babies cried; and for a moment Marrah, lulled by the noisy chaos, felt there was nothing missing.
"But where's Mother?" she cried, suddenly realizing that Sabalah hadn't come out to welcome her.
"Your mother's foot's still hurting," Bere said.
"I'll go get her," Arang volunteered. A few moments later, Sabalah appeared in the door of Ama's longhouse, leaning on a crutch made from oak and padded with deerskins.
"Marrah!" she cried, and with one hand on Arang's shoulder, she came hobbling forward, dragging her injured foot behind her. Shocked at the sight, Marrah ran to meet her. "Don't look at me like that," Sabalah ordered as she hugged Marrah. "I'm not on my deathbed, you silly girl. It's nothing. The thorn went deeper than I thought, so my foot's taking longer to heal. It's not falling off; it's just sore." She turned toward Stavan, who had been standing behind the others watching the homecoming. "So you brought the stranger back." Sabalah shook her head. "I suppose that means we're stuck with him. Well, at least he's back on his feet, poor ugly thing."
"Mother," Marrah interrupted, "he can — "
"Marrah is about to tell you that I speak Shambah," Stavan interposed.
"Great Goddess!" Sabalah dropped her crutch, sat down on the edge of the fire pit, and stared at Stavan in astonishment. "He talks!"
In the days following Marrah's return from Hoza, two things happened that changed her life forever: Sabalah's foot did not get better, and Stavan carved a new toy for Arang. At the time, only the foot seemed important, for as the skin around the hole left by the thorn festered, Sabalah began to run a high fever.
"I'm worried about her," Ama told Marrah one evening after they had bathed Sabalah's foot in herbal decoctions and wrapped it in a clean bandage. "She won't admit she's in pain, but I've seen wounds like this before." She shook her head. "First the flesh drains and swells, and then it begins to turn black. In a week or ten days the red lines appear, and once that happens you only have a little while to decide whether or not to try to take the foot off."
Marrah frowned and poked at the fire with a stick. She had seen infection sweep up a leg on a path of red lines that ran straight toward the heart. Four years ago, she had held the lamp while Ama and Sabalah pleaded with a young woman named Epela to let them cut off her right leg before she died, but Epela had been stubborn. Sure that the Bird Goddess would hear her prayers and heal her, she had refused to lose her leg. As Marrah and everyone else in the village knew, Epela's bones now lay in the Womb of Rest in Hoza, and her three children were being raised by her sisters.
"You're mother's too proud," Ama continued. "She hides her pain, and that's dangerous. Sabalah herself once told me that the Goddess Earth gave us pain so we'd know when something was wrong."
Marrah tossed the stick into the fire and watched it burn. "Maybe she's telling the truth," she suggested. "Maybe her foot doesn't hurt all that much."
"Marrah, don't fool yourself. It's getting worse."
The next evening, when Marrah changed Sabalah's bandage, she knew Ama was right. The wound on her mother's foot wasn't healing, but at least there was no black flesh or thin red lines running toward her heart.
Over the next few days, Stavan spent a lot of time with Sabalah, and the attention he paid to her made Marrah like him better than she thought possible. He sat silently beside her bed, always ready to change the cool compress on her head or fetch her a drink of water. Sabalah drank so much that no one could keep her cup full, and the fever never left her for a moment.
"The men of my people never nurse the sick," he told Marrah one afternoon as they sat together, whispering quietly so as not t
o wake Sabalah, who had fallen into a restless sleep. "But I enjoy it."
"Perhaps you can be a healer when you go back to the Sea of Grass."
He shook his head. "No, I don't think so. In my land only diviners are healers, and they don't sit beside sick people. They dance around them, and chant, and burn wzitza, and sometimes reach into their bodies and pull out stones, and everyone's afraid of them, because if a diviner gets mad at you he can cast a spell that will make you unhappy for the rest of your life. And when he's done, he goes away and leaves the women to get the drinks and change the compresses and do the kinds of things I've been doing for Sabalah." He paused suddenly and listened with intense concentration. "I think I hear her waking up." He got to his feet.
"I've been wanting to ask you something." She stood up and looked at Stavan thoughtfully for a moment. "Why do you spend so much time with her?"
"Because she's your mother."
She realized he hadn't forgotten the promise he'd made on the way back from Hoza. "You don't have to sit with her for my sake. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of my own — "
"Also," he interrupted. "I like her. She's like you: interesting."
He was telling the truth. Sabalah did interest him, but having once made the mistake of telling Marrah about battles, slaves, and concubines, he was more careful what he told her mother. For the most part he held his tongue, but when he did speak, he spared Sabalah accounts of war parties and raids. Instead he told her the stories he had heard as a child. There was the old Hansi tale of the Great Chief's son who got lost in a snowstorm and found his way back to camp by using the stars as snowshoes, the tale of the wise white bull that could talk like a human being, and the tale of the Sun Maiden who danced for Han wearing a red and gold dress. If Sabalah had been well, she would have noticed how strange and unfamiliar these stories were, how all the colors were mixed up, how dark was bad and white was good and women only existed to please men and gods, but they were entertaining and she was too ill to pick them to pieces, so she lay back and let Stavan's voice drift over her, only half hearing what he was saying. It had been a long time since she had heard anyone except her own children speak Sharan — or rather something so close to Sharan as to be almost indistinguishable from it — and as the familiar words fell from his lips she felt soothed. Often, instead of hearing him, she spent the time remembering her youth, her mother, and all the friends she'd left behind.