by Judith Tarr
“Her people are strange,” Tilia said. “You really think they’re coming.”
“I don’t think it will be long,” said Danu. “Can you feel it? It’s strongest just before dawn. The earth growls in its sleep.”
“I don’t hear such things the way you do,” Tilia said. Her voice was flat.
Danu could not tell if she resented it, or if she was accepting an unpalatable truth.
“I wish,” said Danu, “that it were you and not I. I never wanted to be the Lady’s servant.”
“You know what they say,” she said. “The ones who want it are the least fit for it.”
He snorted. “I don’t feel fit at all.”
“I don’t think anyone does.” She paused to admire a potter’s wares. “When do you think she’s going to tell you about the baby?”
Danu could hardly admit to surprise. Tilia might not hear the Lady’s voice, but she had eyes that saw farther than some. “She’ll tell me when she’s ready,” he said.
“Not that she needs to,” said Tilia. “But, you know, you’ll be uncle to it, since she has no other kin here. She should give you a little warning.”
“In the tribes, it’s the man who sired the child who claims it and gives it his name.” Danu stooped to examine the intricacies of a painted bowl. With his eyes on the interlaced spirals, he said, “They even have a word for him, that has a meaning like mother to us.”
“Imagine that,” Tilia said. “A man taking credit for the making of a baby. Not that he doesn’t have something to do with it, but a few moments’ pleasure against nine months of bearing and all the pain of delivering—they are strange people.”
“She still thinks we don’t know what a man does to make a child,” said Danu, “because we have no word for what he is to the child after, except uncle and friend. No word like their father.”
“I should think that such a word would give a man too much power,” Tilia mused. “If he gets a name from those few moments in the night, and a claim on the woman who gives it to him—who’s to tell where the end of it will be?”
“Men who rule,” he said, “and who take what isn’t theirs, and make a glory of war.” He turned away from the potter’s stall, nearly colliding with a handful of passersby.
oOo
Somehow he found his way out of the market into one of the quieter circles. On a deserted doorstep where flowers grew in a pot, the first of the spring, he sank down and lowered his head into his hands.
Tilia had followed him. How not?
She sat beside him. “You won’t turn into one of those just because you’re learning to fight, or because she lets you ride her Mare.”
He raised his head. “How do you know? How can you be certain?”
“Because I know you,” she said. She touched his cheek, then slapped him lightly, just hard enough to sting. “Remember this when you’re tempted to become a horseman. You belong to the Lady. She shines in everything that you do. She won’t let you fall to the horsemen’s gods.”
“But what if I want to be a father?” he said. “What if I want that?”
“How many uncles do you know who were mothers’ bedmates when their children were conceived? I suppose they’re fathers, too. They raise the children, teach them what they need to know, make them fit to serve the Lady. Would you do anything different?”
Danu shook his head.
“So,” said Tilia. “What are you moping about?”
“Things are changing,” he said. “The life we’ve lived for generations out of count, the ways we’ve held to, the very way we think—it’s all going to be gone. Changed. Made different.”
She shivered herself; he saw her. But she betrayed no fear. “If things are changing, then it’s laid on us to make sure that they change for the better—or that if the worst does happen, it’s less terrible than it might have been.”
He could not think of anything useful to say to that.
She struck him on the shoulder with a hard fist. “Look at yourself! You’ve learned about war. You’ve learned about this thing called a father. You’re riding horses. You’ve changed. And you’re still you. You’re still Danu.”
“Am I?”
“As near as makes no matter,” said Tilia.
oOo
She left him with much to think on. Not all of it was dark. That much she had given him.
He thought on it while he did his duties in the Mother’s house, and while he practiced on the field, and while he crept toward mastery of riding the Mare. He even thought on it while he lay in Sarama’s arms, though she gave him little enough time for thinking.
She ripened with the summer’s coming, a bloom that one who knew could not mistake. Her breasts were fuller. Her belly rounded. And one night, while they lay side by side, he felt a flutter that woke in him a sudden, incredulous joy.
He looked up into her startlement. She looked as if she would retreat, coiling into herself, turning away from him. But he would not let her go. “I’ve known,” he said.
Her hand sought her middle. He did not think she was aware that she did it. “How—?”
“One knows,” he said, “if one can see. You were afraid to tell me. Why?”
She shrugged. He thought she might not answer, but after a long pause she said, “I was afraid it might die. And . . . you might tire of me. And not want to—”
He shocked himself by understanding. “Is that how it is in the tribes? A woman gets with child, and the man she chose—who chose her—turns his back on her and goes elsewhere?”
“No,” she said. “No, it’s not like that. It’s . . . she grows huge and unlovely, and he leaves her to grow the child in peace. He has other wives. You—I suppose you have to get another woman to choose you. Since—”
“That is the most appalling thing I have ever heard.”
She stared at him. He did not suppose she had ever seen him angry before. He seldom was. But this—it gnawed at his belly.
He tried to make it clear to her. “When a woman is with child, when she swells with the Lady’s gift, she is the most perfect that she will ever be. She is the living image of the Lady. All that the Lady is, is embodied in her. She is sacred; she is blessed.
“And the man whom she graces with her regard—he shares the blessing. He stands beside her. He supports her when the weight of the child grows heavy. When the birthing time comes, he is there; she bears her child in his arms, and he takes it, and consecrates it to the Lady. Then he too is blessed, and beloved of the Lady.”
Sarama frowned. “The man—the father?”
Danu shook his head. “No. The man whom she chooses. It may be the one who was with her the night the Lady kindled a child in her. Or it may not. She may choose that one for his beauty or his wit or his gift of pleasing a woman. But the one who stands beside her, who will be uncle to the child—that one she chooses for his gentleness and his strength. He will raise the child, you see. Only the best and the most steadfast may do that.”
“I—can choose another man?” Sarama asked, as if she could not believe such a thing. “I have to choose another? What if I don’t want to?”
“You don’t have to,” Danu said as patiently as he could. “You can if you wish. It’s your right. Your duty to the child, to give it an uncle who will raise it properly, chide it when it needs chiding, indulge it when it needs indulging, teach it the ways of the people. That one need not be the one who shares your bed in the nights. He is for your pleasure. The uncle is for the child’s sake.”
“Like—” She was trying; struggling, but trying. “Like when a man has a beautiful wife, but she has little skill for being a mother. So he gives his son a nurse, one of his other wives maybe, or a sister, or a daughter—someone who can raise it as it should be raised.”
“Only sons? What does he do with daughters?”
“Daughters don’t matter,” she said.
“Daughters are everything here,” Danu said.
“I hope it is a daughter,
” said Sarama fiercely. “I want it to be a daughter. Here of all places in the world—here she can be all that she was meant to be.”
Unless the horsemen won the war, and only sons were allowed to matter. But Danu did not say it. Saying it would give it too much strength.
Instead he said, “I’ve been asked often to be a woman’s bedmate, but never to raise her child. I’ll not be wounded if you find another.”
She took his face in her hands, tangling her fingers in his beard, so that he could not move or look away. Her eyes burned on him, as if she limned the lines of him in fire. “Why hasn’t anyone asked? Because you’re beautiful? Does beauty forbid a man to bring up a child?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Do you think it does?”
“I think,” she said. “I think . . . I wouldn’t know where to look for a nurse for this baby. You’ll have to do.”
“I could find—”
Her finger stopped him. “Don’t be ridiculous. I want you. Maybe it’s a terribly ill choice, but it’s my choice. Are you going to argue with it?”
“No,” he said. “Oh, no.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Because you were brought up never to argue with a woman?”
“And because I want it,” he said. “Yes, I want it. I want this child in my arms. I want to be its uncle. And—and its father. There’s never been a father in the Lady’s country before. I’ll be the first. I pray I’ll do it well, and not shame her or harm her people.”
She kissed his brow, his cheeks, his lips. “You will always do well,” she said.
That was the Lady in her, speaking through her. He felt the power of the blessing, the strength of that regard. It swayed him, buffeted him as if it had been a great wind. It swept his heart clean, and emptied him of doubts.
Those would come back. He knew that. And yet for this night he was pure in his faith, content in the Lady’s arms, blessed and beloved.
52
After the time of the sowing, when the first green shoots had thickened and begun to grow tall, just at the threshold of summer, a guest came to Three Birds. Sarama had been in the temple, resting in the quiet, content in the Lady’s arms. As she came out she met the Mother coming in, bent on the same errand.
They paused on the threshold. The Mother’s smile was warm: astonishing always after the coldness that Sarama had known in Larchwood. Here Sarama was welcome. Here she was even, if not loved, then looked on with affection. Maybe it was for Danu’s sake; maybe, after so long, a little for her own.
They did not say anything of consequence, she and the Mother. They seldom needed to. There was understanding between them.
The Mother was more like her son than maybe he knew. His beauty he must have had from the father that no one here would acknowledge, but the rest of him was hers.
Gentleness and strength. Yes. And a warmth that people came to as if it had been a fire on the hearth. All that family had it, even blunt uncompromising Tilia.
Sarama, whose spirit blew hot and cold in the winds of the world, luxuriated briefly in that warmth. It made the day brighter. The true wonder of it was that the more she shared it, the more of it she had.
The Mother went out about her business. Sarama went in about her own.
She found Danu at the bread-baking. The flour was ground, the bread made and set beside the hearth to rise.
He greeted her with a swift and brilliant smile, but he did not leave his duties. Nor had she expected him to. She wanted to watch him, that was all, and maybe lend a hand if he needed one.
She had learned some while since where one might sit or stand and be out of the way. He was used to it now, no longer so self-conscious.
The others, the menservants and the Mother’s acolytes, reckoned Sarama a madwoman, but a harmless one. They were glad of another hand now and then, and not inclined to object that it was Sarama’s.
It was a comfortable place to be on this bright morning. It would be warm later, but it was cool still. The sun shone through the opened shutters. The breeze that blew in was fresh, and sweetened the air inside. The smoky closeness of winter was nearly all gone.
As she lent a hand with the cleaning of a fine catch of fish from the river, one of Danu’s sisters called from the outermost room. She put a lilt in it that spoke of strangers in the house, guests from elsewhere—traders, Sarama expected; they all stopped here to pay courtesy to the Mother.
If these were traders, they had precious little to trade. There were three of them, two strapping and silent women, and a third of less bulk and even less volubility.
Sarama knew them all. The silent ones had come to Three Birds with her in the winter, and had left as soon as they arrived, eager to return to their own city. The one whose escort they were had not grown less wintry in her expression since spring warmed the earth.
“Catin,” Danu said in what sounded like honest surprise. He slanted a look at this servant, a brow at that. They moved quickly to lead the guests in, relieve them of their packs and their walking-staves, ply them with food and drink and every comfort that the house had to offer.
Then at last he could sit with them and ask the question that had been burning in all their minds. “What brings you to Three Birds?”
Catin had not looked at Sarama past the first, sweeping glance that took in the whole of her, and stopped and held at the swelling of her belly. Yet as she answered Danu, her eye flashed sidewise at Sarama. “News,” she said, “and a warning. With the new moon, a message came from the forest people.”
“The forest people?” Danu’s brows were raised. “What, a message from a myth?”
“They are real,” Sarama said without thinking, and before Catin could speak. “Strange people. Their language is nothing like yours, or ever like mine. They look—different. Like stones: heavy and solid, as if they grew out of the earth.”
“Yes,” Catin said, as if the word had been startled out of her. “How did you know them? Are they a legend to you, too?”
“I saw them,” Sarama said. “I was a guest in one of their villages. Two of them guided me to your country.”
“No,” said Catin, and the almost-warmth that had been between them, however briefly, was gone. “They would never do such a thing. Their world is even more fragile than ours. The news they bring—they can never have welcomed it. Horsemen massing on their eastern borders. Camps spread as far as the eye can see. And more coming, day after day.”
Sarama had expected it. Had waited for it. And yet . . .
“So soon?”
“The forest people say,” Catin said, “that the gods from the steppe sent out the call, and all the tribes have answered.”
So soon. This time Sarama did not say it. Catin sounded grimly pleased, as if she was glad to be proved right; to know that Sarama had indeed come bringing the war behind her.
The others did not seem quite to understand what this meant. Even Danu was much too calm. He said, “Gods can move quickly when mortals are willing.”
“But,” Sarama said, “when I left, there was no—”
“You left,” said Catin. “What was to keep the rest of the tribes from following you?”
“The Lady,” said Sarama.
“Did she promise you that? I saw people learning to fight as I walked into the city. Why teach them, if she’ll keep the tribes away?”
“You can,” said Sarama, “either castigate me for bringing the war or condemn me for trying to keep it away. Not both at once.”
“Ah!” said Catin. “You speak well.”
Sarama gritted her teeth at the condescension in Catin’s tone. “I have had good teachers,” she said sweetly.
“He is, isn’t he?” Catin sat back in the chair that was reserved for guests and sipped the sweet mead, first of that year and very fine.
In the uncomfortable silence, Danu said rather too brightly, “The Mother should be here soon. Will you be staying long?”
“Long enough to sleep,” she said. “Then I have to
go back.”
Danu nodded. He showed admirable restraint in not remarking that her city would have great need now of lessons in fighting.
Sarama could hardly say it if he would not. She held her peace therefore, and waited impatiently for the Mother to come and set them all free of this uncomfortable gathering.
oOo
The Mother came at length with stately grace and freed Sarama and Danu to escape to the inner rooms. The servants fled behind them.
“I don’t know why,” Sarama said when they had taken shelter in the kitchen, “but I simply cannot like that woman.”
Danu sighed. “I think the dreams so overwhelm her that she sees nothing else. And she thinks of you as the cause of them.”
“I am not,” said Sarama.
“Knowingly,” he said, “no. Nor willingly.”
Sarama opened her mouth, but shut it again.
He inspected the pot that hung over the fire, tasted its contents, crumbled in a little of something dried, green, and fragrant. He had not looked on her with hatred, nor did he seem greatly troubled.
“You think I led them here,” Sarama said.
“I think,” he said, “that once the westward way was opened, others would think to follow.”
“I wasn’t the first,” she said. “There was the man who brought horses to Larchwood.”
“Yes,” said Danu. “You followed him. Why wouldn’t others follow you?”
“The gods send them.”
“And the Lady sent you ahead, to prepare us.” Everything, it seemed, was in order. He turned to face Sarama. “Only Catin tries to lay blame, and Larchwood follows her because she’ll be its Mother when her time comes. We lay no blame here in Three Birds. What is, is. If you hadn’t come to teach us how to fight, we might have no hope at all.”
“You think they’d have come?” Sarama asked. “Without me?”
“You said it,” said Danu. “A traveler was here before you. He told tales everywhere. Yes? If you heard him, then others must have as well. There’s fertile ground there for such seeds to grow in.”
Sarama looked about. She had learned to see this place as simply itself. But if she tried, she could still see with a tribesman’s eyes.