by Judith Tarr
That silenced him, but only briefly. “Sweet Lady! Your people are savages.”
He rose as she had, but never as stiffly. If he was aware of her resentment, he did not show it. He wrapped her in a soft blanket, made her come into the outer room, bathed her with warmed water. His hands were gentler than his expression. He bathed himself, too, thereafter, and for all the ache in her outraged parts, she felt them begin to warm again, her breasts to tighten, wanting him.
If that made her a savage, then so be it. She had heard—not from men—that men had limitations, but this one seemed to have fewer than some.
He was less swift to rise, but rise he did. This time she knew better what to do, and her body knew what it had wanted: the completion of the rite, the thing that had failed her before—and not by his fault, whatever he might choose to think.
She had not known what to seek. No more did she now, except that there was something, and one reached it . . .
So.
So. Indeed. And indeed again. And . . .
31
Danu had heard many a sound from women in the throes of the Lady’s gift, but that shout of triumph was wholly new. And, like Sarama herself, it was both marvelous and shocking. She clung to him, locked tight as he completed his own rite, and laughed like a wild thing.
It was impossible to resist that laughter. Even uncomprehending, even mildly appalled. She was the Lady’s own—now, for his heart and soul, he had no doubt of it. Only the Lady’s chosen could love as this one loved.
She had chosen him. Had she known she would do it? Would she even want to have done it, once the Lady’s presence was gone from her?
He did not wonder if he would. That doubt had lost itself somewhere, he did not remember where.
oOo
They lay tangled together in front of the hearth, warm where the fire touched, snow-cold where it could not reach. Danu groped for the blankets that had wrapped them both.
She laid her head on his shoulder and sighed. She was asleep, the deep and sudden sleep that came with the Lady’s gift.
He should be sharing it, except that his thoughts were in such confusion. He had never thought to be lying here, least of all on this day, after Catin had come and flung sharp-edged words in his face and gone furious away.
Blindness. Jealousy. Demons speaking in her?
Perhaps. What would she do now that she had cast him off?
He would learn the answer to that soon enough. But not now. For this moment he would be content, wrapped in the arms of this woman as she was wrapped in his; and if he could not sleep, at the least he could rest.
He buried his face in her hair. So wonderful, so straight and fine, like tarnished copper, or leaves in autumn. She smelled of leaves and grass and horses, and of clean musky woman.
Astonishing, that she had never taken a man before. Miraculous, that she had taken him. He was blessed, twice and thrice blessed, to be so chosen.
oOo
He slept after all, and woke to the snorting of horses. Something had caught their attention; from the sound of it, they had trapped it in a corner below.
Sarama was still asleep. He left her the blankets, retrieved his mantle and wrapped it about him, and descended not too quickly, but not slowly either.
The horses had indeed cornered their prey; and a pitiful scrap of a child it was, too, white with terror and desperately glad to see Danu.
“Ah, laddie,” Danu said with rough gentleness, “they only want to be petted. See, here, stroke her neck, so—and push young impudence away; he will nip. But he’ll never eat you.”
It was, when he had got it up the ladder and pried it from about his neck, one of the children from the Mother’s house. Its face was familiar. It must be one of those who were always about, watching and listening and parroting the words when Sarama spoke in the language of the tribes.
It—he—had a message for Danu and for Sarama. “Come to the Mother,” he said.
“Not without breakfast,” said Danu calmly. “Here, stay, eat with us.”
“You keep the king waiting?” Sarama wanted to know.
“She won’t be pleased to see us if we’re growling with hunger.” And, he thought, it would be best if their strength was up.
His belly had gone hollow when he saw the Mother’s messenger and knew what he must be. Catin’s words this morning, the Mother’s summons—which a Mother almost never made use of—at noon: they might have nothing to do with each other. Or, far too likely, one might have bred the other.
The child, whose name was Mika, was not at all averse to being fed. Danu could remember when he was as young as that, when he had been endlessly hungry. He wondered if the uncles who fed him had been as gratified as he was now, to see his labor of hunting and cooking put to such good use.
Sarama had retreated to the inner room while Danu prepared their noonday breakfast. She emerged as the last of it went on the table, decorously and tidily dressed in the coat that he had made for her. She would not meet his eyes.
He forbore to press her. Perhaps she was simply preoccupied with the summons, and shy in front of the child. He knew how it was with a new lover, how one was inclined to wonder if people could see what had changed. For a woman who had not undergone the rite of womanhood, or been initiated by the Lady’s chosen lover, it must be a stranger thing than he could imagine.
If he had known that her people did not practice the rite, he might have acted differently. But he could not regret what he had done.
They ate in silence. Mika ate as much as the others together, and again as much, and only stopped because the table was bare. He belched politely and waited as was proper, for Sarama to rise.
She obliged, perhaps blindly. “Best to go,” she said.
oOo
She intended to ride the Mare, which meant that the colt would come as well. Mika was wide-eyed with terror—and with yearning.
Sarama blinked out of her abstraction. “You can ride behind me,” she said.
Mika swallowed hard. Danu opened his mouth to rescue the child, but Mika had more courage than Danu had given him credit for. He scrambled up behind Sarama, clinging so tightly that he must have left bruises, but she said nothing.
Danu smiled what he hoped was reassurance. Mika stared whitely back; and gasped as the Mare began to walk. But he kept his seat. After a few strides his terror turned to incredulity; then to a white-lipped joy.
Danu, perforce and contentedly afoot, spared him a moment’s envy. But only a moment. Humankind were not meant to sit on the back of a horse; or why had the Lady given them feet?
The colt walked beside him, shoulder to his shoulder, with occasional forays afield. Danu was forgetting what it was to walk in or about Larchwood without his hooved companion. It was like the dogs that people had in some of the western cities, but a dog grown as large as one of the cattle.
That was an alarming thought. Danu laid his hand on the colt’s neck, tugging lightly at its thick mane. No, no dog; not this one, who for all his propensity for testing the thickness of one’s hide with his teeth, was a gentle creature.
Strange that such an animal should be the sign and portent of that terrible thing called war. Gentle in itself, eager to please, nonetheless it offered great power; strength; speed beyond simple human feet. A man mounted on a horse might find his own country too small for his compass; be tempted to wander far, and perhaps, if he were of such a mind, to think of taking what he found and keeping it for himself.
Danu did not like to think such thoughts, or to imagine a person who would think them. And yet, if he was to understand what was coming, he must try to understand the people who came.
oOo
The city closed about them with its mingling of walls and trees. The colt moved in close. He did not like the city, but the call of his own was strong: the Mare from whom he would not willingly be separated, and perhaps, a little, the man who had brought him from confinement into the great world.
It came to Da
nu that he did not like this place, either. It was tolerable, its people likewise, and for some he felt actual affection. But it was not his city.
Mika had so far conquered his fear as to sit bolt upright behind Sarama and grin at his agemates as he rode by. They ran after, calling to each other, half in envy, half in awe. Sarama on a horse they had grown used to, but one of their own was a new and mighty thing.
Sarama sealed Mika’s place forever when they came to the Mother’s house, by slipping from the Mare’s back but leaving Mika there, and saying, “Watch her for me.”
Mika was too stark with the honor and the terror to do anything foolish, such as try to ride the Mare. He nodded stiffly and hitched himself forward till he could cling to the Mare’s mane. Sarama’s smile bound him there.
It nearly bound Danu. He could not recall ever seeing her smile before. It was wonderful, marvelous; luminous. Small wonder she was so sparing of her smiles, if they were all so potent.
oOo
The edge of this one snared Danu and led him into the Mother’s house. It was crowded at this hour and in this season.
In the outer room the daughters had set up a loom. They were laying threads for the warp as Danu passed, colors of summer and of autumn, as if to remember them in the grey winter. They stared openly at Sarama as she passed, and more covertly at Danu. He had not, in a long while, felt so much a stranger.
The Mother sat in the second room, spinning wool into thread, with her daughter Catin for company. Catin’s expression held a secret, a dark look, darker as she looked from Danu to Sarama. He did not think there was anything to see; but he was not a woman, with a woman’s keenness of sight.
And they said that men were jealous; that lacking power, they clung to what they had, which was the favor of a woman. Yet it seemed a woman could be jealous, too, and perhaps with cause. Though what power Danu could give the Mother’s heir of Larchwood, he did not know. The colt, perhaps? The friendship of Three Birds?
The Mother spun her thread, making them wait, as was her privilege. Danu, after some few moments, took up a spindle that lay atop a new basket of wool, and began to spin in his own turn.
He had shocked Sarama: her eyes were wide. So; men did not spin, either, where she came from. Pity. It was useful, but none too taxing; one could do it while walking on a journey, or while tending children. Or, as now, while waiting to be acknowledged by the Mother of a city.
Sarama sat near him, watching him. Not the Mother; not Catin. He noticed that. He wondered if it was deliberate.
oOo
They spun in silence, the Mother and he, for a lengthening while. The Mother was quicker, but he spun a finer thread.
It was Catin whose patience snapped first. “Mother! Will you speak or no?”
“I will speak,” the Mother said placidly, “when I am ready to speak.”
“You’ve thought about war,” Sarama said. “About what I told you.”
“I have thought,” the Mother said, “and others have been thinking. I have met with the elders of the women, and with their daughters. We are agreed that this thing called war not be allowed in our city.”
“You can allow or not allow,” Sarama said. “It will come.”
“Because you bring it,” said Catin.
“I do not bring it,” Sarama said. Perhaps it was her shakiness still with the words of the Lady’s tongue that made her sound flat, as if she felt nothing.
“Knowingly,” said the Mother before Catin could respond, “perhaps not. But it comes behind you. Some of us think that it follows you.”
“The storm follows the crow.” It was not Danu’s place to speak in such a meeting, and yet he could not keep silent. “The crow does not cause the storm. It comes with or without her.”
“And yet with one comes the other,” the Mother said. “Believe this, woman of the horsemen: I am not one who contends that you bear us malice. But a dark thing rides behind you. We cannot permit it here.”
“You send me away.” Sarama did not sound surprised. “How will you learn to fight? No one can teach you.”
“We do not wish to learn fighting,” the Mother said.
“You will learn it,” said Sarama. “You will have to.”
The Mother set her lips together. “That may be. But our people do not wish to learn it from you.”
“Then you die,” said Sarama.
Danu tensed, because she seemed about to turn on her heel and walk away. But she stood still. She met Catin’s eyes. “This is not well done,” she said.
“We do as we must,” said the Mother.
But this time Catin was not to be quelled by the Mother’s words or her will. “I told them what you are, but it’s not my will that they let you go. You’ll only go back to your horsemen and show them the way to our country.”
“I will not,” said Sarama.
“So you say,” said Catin. “They won’t have you here, but I won’t have you going back. I persuaded them to send you elsewhere—an elsewhere of our devising. We’ll send you where you can be kept out of the way and prevented from running home to your horsemen. We’ll send you to Three Birds.”
Danu stiffened. “If she is the stormcrow that you call her, then why do you send the storm to us? Are you so weak and afraid that you can only think to lay the burden on my Mother, as you did before?”
He had never spoken such words in his life, words of anger without thought. No, not even to Tilia when she provoked him unmercifully. Tilia had never turned on him so.
Catin was gaping at him. He had taken her completely aback. “I think,” he said, “that your fear for your people is honest, and so is your fear of the dreams that we both have had. But what you do now, these accusations, this hatred—this is not selfless. You do it for dislike of this woman, for that and for no other cause.”
“What if I do?” Catin flung back at him. “Tell me now why you defend her. If she chose you—if she knew how—you would accept her joyfully.”
Since that was no less than the truth, Danu nodded. “Yes, that much is so. But desire can see more clearly than hatred. I see that you can think of nothing better to do than send her—and the war you say she brings—to my people, so that they may suffer what you are too fearful to face. Think if you can. See what you do. Larchwood is close to the wood. If it and its neighbor cities know how to fight, the war can stop before it goes deeper. But if you refuse to learn, if you send the war onward, many more cities will be endangered.”
“Without this woman,” said Catin, “the war will not know where to go. If you keep her safe, the horsemen may never come at all.”
“The horsemen will come,” Sarama said.
“They will not come for you,” said Catin.
“No,” said Sarama.
Danu drew a deep breath. “If you send her to Three Birds, then I go with her.”
“Yes,” the Mother said. “It were best.”
Catin opened her mouth, but shut it again.
The Mother nodded. “Indeed,” she said, as if Catin had spoken. “The Lady brought him here, but his tasks are done. It is time he returned to his own people.”
“He came to wait for her,” Catin said. “Did I matter nothing?”
“You mattered very much,” said Danu. It was difficult in front of the others, but it would be no easier if he waited to say what he must say. “The Lady has much still for you to do. But my part here is done. I belong in Three Birds. You belong here. For good or for ill, whatever comes—this is your place.”
“You came for her,” Catin said. She was blind, and deaf to any words she did not wish to hear. Maybe it was as Sarama had said: the horsemen’s gods had fuddled her spirit.
He could not say so in front of her. The Mother must see it. Mothers saw everything.
She said nothing. She suffered Catin to go on, words he barely remembered once they were uttered, accusations against Sarama, against him, against the Lady knew what. Could not her own Mother see that she was distressed in the so
ul?
When she stopped for breath, Danu spoke; perhaps unwisely, but he could not forbear. “You chose me,” he said. “I went by the will of our Mothers and with the Lady’s blessing. And yes, for you, because I had conceived a liking for you. Don’t destroy that now.”
Had he given her pause? He could not see it. “Go with this woman,” she said, “since you have conceived a liking for her. Maybe in your arms she’ll forget the war she tried to bring upon us all.”
Danu did not try to protest. Not again. He bowed his head and set his lips together and was silent.
“Go,” said Catin. “Go!”
Danu glanced at the Mother. She raised a hand slightly: conceding authority to her heir.
He swept Sarama out of that room too quickly for her to object, all but carried her past the daughters—who had made little progress with threading the loom since he went before the Mother—and deposited her on the Mare’s back, displacing the startled Mika. The Mare knew her duty: she trotted off toward the house by the river, with the colt trailing behind.
Danu would follow in a moment. But first he had somewhat to do. He steadied Mika on his feet, smoothed the boy’s ruffled hair, and said, “Remember when they come, the horsemen: that you are not afraid of horses.”
Mika did not understand. Yet in time, if the Lady pleased, he would. Danu tapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Remember,” he said.
32
Sarama did not need any great fluency in these people’s language to know that she had been cast out by the king’s heir. That it had little to do with honest fear of Sarama’s treachery, and much to do with the man they had in common, Sarama did not doubt at all.
The man himself was visibly dismayed, but it was more anger than grief. He would make a warrior, Sarama thought, after all—as would the king’s heir, despite the passion of her protest. That very likely was why she did it: because she was afraid, not of the horsemen, but of her own eagerness for battle.
Without Sarama to teach her and her people to fight, she well might die, or be raped and held hostage. But she would sooner do that than concede Sarama the victory. It was a madness of obstinacy, unshakable for anything that Sarama might do; and her king seemed disinclined to restrain her.