by Judith Tarr
There were spread weavings more elaborate than Agni had known was possible, bright as flowers, some rough, some smooth, some a mingling of both. Agni would have reckoned them fit for kings, but even the children wore such marvels of the weaver’s art, playing carelessly in the dust and mud, with no one to rebuke them for dirtying their beautiful coats.
There were more traders in cloth, and traders in pots of wonderful artistry, and traders in things to eat—most of which Agni could not even name—and among them women who offered the ruddy wonder of copper, and even more wonderful than that, the bright gleam of gold.
It was like sunlight given substance, cool and smooth to the hand, and startlingly heavy. Agni marveled at a great twisted ring of it, a ring for the throat, as the trader indicated with a gesture and a smile, with knobs of amber ornamenting the ends. It clasped his neck as if made for it, and sat cool and heavy on his shoulders.
“It is yours,” Tillu said, appearing beside him, speaking for the Mother, whom Agni had seen just a moment before at the far end of the market. She could move quickly for a woman so huge, and lightly, too. For himself Tillu added, “Amazing. The amber’s the same color as your eyes. She knows it, too. She’s got her eye on you, my lord.”
Agni did not dignify that with a response. He ran his finger round the curve of the ring, cherishing the feel of it. Then he frowned. “This is a thing of great price, an ornament for a king.”
Agni thought Tillu might be too caught up in his teasing to repeat the words, but he had a fair sense of his own importance. He spoke; and the Mother nodded, eyes on Agni.
“You must want something in return,” he said to her.
Once she had heard that in her own tongue, the Mother nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Bring none of your war here.”
The word she used, though strangely altered, was Agni’s own, in his own language. His eyes widened slightly at that. She went on, and Tillu spoke for her, stumbling, searching for words, because this was not trade-talk or guide-talk; this was the conversation of kings.
“If you will go on,” she said, “and let us be, then you may have your fill of whatever you please. It is riches you wish, yes? Not blood.”
“Riches,” Agni said, “and kingship.”
She frowned slightly. “A man cannot be a Mother,” she said.
“What—” Agni fixed a hard stare on Tillu. “What did you say to her?”
Tillu spread his hands and sighed. “I said what I could say. There’s no word for king here—nothing for a man who rules over the people. The only word close to it is the word for Mother.”
“Ah,” said Agni. He reflected on that, while the Mother waited, patient. “Tell her that a woman cannot be a king.”
“But there’s no word for—”
“Teach her a new word,” Agni said. “And ask her where she learned the word for war.”
“King,” she said, softening it, twisting it a little, making it sound like the other words she spoke. “That is—a man who rules, yes? Men never rule here.”
“So I gathered,” Agni said. “And the word for war?”
“It is the word for what is,” she said. Nor would she say more than that. Instead she said, “Come with me. Be a guest in my house tonight.”
Agni could see that he was not well advised to refuse. Equally clearly he could see that Patir and Rahim and Gauan had drawn in close, and that they liked this not at all.
Agni inclined his head to the Mother, to his friends’ manifest distress. But if he was to take this country, he must know how best to go about it.
oOo
“She tried to buy you,” Rahim said as the Mother led them out of the market. “These people have no honor.”
Agni, who was still wearing the golden torque, shrugged with more nonchalance than he felt. “You expected otherwise? These are women ruling women. When did a woman ever have honor?”
That silenced Rahim, though clearly it did not satisfy him. Nothing but war in the manner of the tribes would do that. And that, they would not get here.
“These people are unarmed,” Patir said. “I doubt they even know how to fight. If they have no honor, then what have we if we kill them? They have no defense against us.”
Agni nodded. “Yes. Yes, you see it. There must be a way in honor to take this country.”
“Take it as you take a woman,” said Gauan. “If she’s willing, take her gently and with all good will. But if she’s not—then take her as you may, and let her learn to accept you.”
Someone hissed. Rahim maybe, warning Gauan of delicate ground. But although Agni had been cast out of the White Horse for taking a woman who was unwilling, he had never done such a thing, nor ever intended to.
He said to Gauan, “You may have the right of it. These are women, after all. Surely a woman is a woman, even if she rules a city.”
“That is a fine figure of a woman,” Tillu observed, watching the Mother as she walked ahead of them. “I wonder, do they take men as we take women?”
“You don’t know?” Rahim asked.
Tillu shrugged. “Well. The traders tell tales, but who knows which of them are true?” And though Rahim begged him to tell the tales, he shook his head and laughed, and would not tell even one.
Agni, listening to them, felt his cheeks go hot. The girl Maya had vanished somewhere between the edge of the city and its market. As wonderful a creature as this Mother was, when Agni’s nether parts grew hard, it was the girl he thought of and not the woman. The woman was too much like Earth Mother; too close to the goddess’ self.
oOo
Her house was as large as a clan-chieftain’s tent, made of wood and painted inside and out. It was hung and carpeted with more of the wonderful weavings, and full of treasures, fine pots and chests and furnishings made of wood and carved and again painted. Agni saw an outer room with a loom laid out on the floor, and an inner room with shutters open to the sunlight. There were others deeper in, but those he was not shown, not just yet.
It was strange to look up and see wooden beams overhead: like being in the forest, but lighter, brighter, because the sun was allowed to come in. With the Mother and a handful of younger women and girls who must be her daughters, there was only room for Agni and Patir, Rahim and Tillu. The rest, except for half a dozen of his own men of the White Horse, he sent back to the camp with word that he was safe, and to wait.
Gauan went with them to lead them, not particularly willingly. He had been spinning great webs of fancy with Rahim, boasting of the wine he would drink and the women he would win. He was sore disappointed to be sent back to the company of men.
The half-dozen who stayed behind camped with the horses on the grassy hillside near to the Mother’s house, though she offered another house for them.
“They prefer to sleep under the sky,” Agni said, which was true. The Mother did not argue, nor did she seem greatly afraid of armed men so close to her house. For that matter his three dozen had failed to dismay her; but he reckoned it wise not to burden her with the feeding of them all.
They went back laden with foodstuffs and with treasures, that they would show off to the rest. Those who stayed were even more richly endowed and even better fed.
The four who were guests with Agni in the Mother’s house were richest of all. They feasted like kings: a whole kid roasted and served on a great platter, nested in fruits and steaming grain, and bread finer than Agni had ever seen before, and honeycomb, and mead, and wine that came, the Mother said, from the south.
They ate and drank well, but not till they fell into a stupor. They were too wise for that. None of the women seemed disappointed or in any way dismayed.
It was not the liveliest feast Agni had ever sat to. There was a woman who sang, and a pair of young men came in and danced a stilted, stately dance. Those were the only men Agni had seen up close. All the rest were women.
He made bold to ask the Mother: “Where are your men? Do you have any but these two?”
When the
question was made clear to her, she neither blanched nor laughed. She responded calmly, “We have as many men as anyone else. Men cooked this dinner that you eat so happily. Some are hunting, herding, travelling abroad.”
“You have sons?” Agni asked. “A husband—husbands?”
There was a word, it appeared, for sons, but the other left Tillu baffled and struggling to explain. The Mother’s reply was clear enough. “I am blessed by the Lady: all my children are daughters. No man shares my bed now. The last one I chose, chose to go back to his own mother. I’ve seen none since whom I would invite into my bed. Until,” she said, “tonight.”
There was no mistaking the import of her glance, even before Tillu rendered the words so that Agni could understand.
“Don’t,” Patir muttered under his breath. “There’s the trap. A net, a rope, all her brothers with knives . . .”
“I don’t think so,” Agni said, not taking his eyes from the Mother’s face. For all the number of her daughters, she was not so very old. Her hair was black and glossy, her skin unlined. She was, in her way, quite beautiful.
As if she had taken the thought from his head, she said through the greatly amused Tillu, “You are beautiful, man of the east, like the red deer in autumn. Will you worship the Lady with me?”
Agni’s cheeks were afire, but he nodded. Patir growled, barely to be heard. Agni reckoned that more jealousy than fear for Agni’s safety. Rahim was openly envious.
The Mother’s smile lit the room. She rose and held out her hand. Agni barely hesitated before he took it.
58
There was indeed a room beyond the rooms that Agni had been shown, and one beyond that from which came the scents of roasting meat and honey sweetness. This one to which the Mother led him appeared to be her own, nearly filled with a great soft bed. Lamps were lit, hanging from the beams, shedding a mellow light across the coverlet; for it was dusk without. Somehow, while Agni was otherwise occupied, the sun had gone to his rest, and night had fallen.
Tillu had rather pointedly not been invited to follow, nor had he gone so far as to offer. The last Agni saw of him, he was grinning broadly. He found all of this much too amusing for Agni’s peace of mind.
And here was Agni, and here was the woman, with but one common word between them; and that word was war.
Words were little enough between a man and a woman. Rudira had been used to chatter overmuch, though Agni had never ventured to say so.
There was nothing that this one could say, that he could understand. All that she needed to convey, she did with glances and smiles, and with her hands divesting him of his clothes before he could muster will to object. He shivered though the room was warm, naked in front of this woman with her wise, wise eyes.
She was small: her head came just to his breastbone. And yet she must have outweighed him by a fair fraction. He, who was no small or narrow-shouldered man, felt like a stripling beside her.
Her hands marveled at his skin, how milky white where coat and trousers covered it, how smooth to the touch, even with its dusting of red-golden hairs. The men she had had before, she let him know with gestures and with glances, had been less tall but more massive, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, and thickly furred with black hair.
He was lovely, her hands said, like a young stag. And such hair; such eyes, golden as the amber in the torque that she had given him, outlandish, wonderful.
No woman had worshipped him with her hands before. Kissing and stroking, yes, but not this sheer delight in the touch and the feel of him. She ran hands over his face, shook his hair out of its braid and buried her fingers in it, and stroked his shoulders, his breast, his belly and loins and thighs.
His manly organ ached with stiffness, and yet he made no move toward her. She stroked him, kissed him and teased him with her tongue, till he gasped and pulled away.
She laughed at that, not cruelly; warm rich laughter, as if she understood him perfectly, and did not blame him, either.
He had never been laughed at so before. It made him angry, and yet it made him eager. He reached boldly and found the fastenings of the garment that she wore, and worked them free.
He had expected layer on layer, but under the long coat or tunic she wore only a skirt woven of scarlet cords, wrapped about her buttocks and her thighs but baring the thick curls below and the great dark-nippled breasts above, as rich as this country she lived in, and as extravagant in that richness. He had seen no infant in the house, nor heard one, and yet her breasts were heavy with milk.
Her eyes invited him; her hand on her nipple pressed forth a drop. With a kind of antic terror, he bent his head and sucked as a child would, as he could just remember doing. Her milk was warm and faintly sweet.
He struggled not to gag on it. She did not try to hold him, did not catch at him even when he scrambled backward away from her. He could leave, her manner said, if he must. Or he could stay.
He was not a coward. This was not his country or his language or his way of taking a woman. Maybe Patir had the right of it: maybe he should simply set his knife to this woman’s throat, take her place and her power, and show these people what a king could be.
Or maybe he would gather his courage and advance on her and take her in his arms and kiss her till she gasped; and while she was catching her breath, spread her thighs and take her standing, fierce as a stallion on a mare in season. And like a mare in season, she opened to him willingly, took him strong and took him deep. It was like a battle, strength against strength.
He must be stronger. This strength must yield to his. He bore her backward onto the softness of the bed. She gave way, but willingly—too willingly. She allowed him to be the stronger.
Just so had he tamed Mitani—and the way he did it would not have sat well with many a horsetamer of the tribes. Agni might well have indulged in a flash of anger, but rueful mirth overwhelmed it.
It was a fault he had, that he saw more than one side of everything. That came from his mother’s people, Taditi liked to tell him. They were all strange.
And here he lay in a billow of bed, with Earth Mother’s own living flesh beneath him, and his body carrying on in perfect contentment while his mind wandered afield. She was as apt to his bidding as a fine mare, and as wanton as a mare in season. And every bit of it she did because she chose, and not because he forced it on her.
She stroked him with light and teasing hands, clasping his buttocks, driving him deeper, holding him tight as her body stiffened and surged. And when she had touched the height of her pleasure, she slipped free of him and smiled, stroked his hair, and went peacefully to sleep.
He lay beside her, as alone as if she had cast him out on the steppe. His body quivered, taut still, unsatisfied. Furtively, shamefully, he finished it. He spent himself with no little spite, in the mounded coverlets. She never stirred.
But when he made to rise, her arm circled his middle, and her eyes, wide awake and very much aware, smiled into his.
He could break free. She was not as strong as that, nor her grip so tight. It was her smile that held him, and the levelness of her gaze. She knew him as women always seemed to do: inside and out, heart and soul and body.
But she did not know that part of him which reflected on winning a kingdom. He could not see it anywhere in her eyes. That was a men’s thing, a thing of Skyfather’s will and shaping. Earth Mother knew nothing of it.
He knew then what he would do. It had been coming to him since he saw this country, but now he was sure of it. His hand went to the collar about his neck, the heavy golden thing, warm with the warmth of his skin.
Her eyes followed his hand. They asked a question. He nodded.
Her smile was blazing bright. She pulled him to her, covered him with kisses. And while he was still gaping at her, taken aback by the force of her gladness, she coaxed and teased and persuaded his member to come erect again. Then she satisfied him as he had satisfied her, with exuberance that left him gasping.
And that, he
thought, was what it was to be a bought creature. It might also be what it was to be a king, or the beginning of a king.
oOo
In a country that did not know war but that knew trade very well, there appeared to be no dishonor in prompt surrender. As early as the morning after Agni came into that first town, women came bearing gifts of gold and copper, fine pottery, fat cattle and sheep heavy with wool, rich weavings, bright shells, stones, beads and baubles, all the wealth of this fabulously wealthy country. With it they hoped to buy his goodwill, and to spare themselves the edge of his spear.
He found them more than willing to feed and house his people, to give them whatever they asked.
“Even women,” Rahim said in wonder. He had gone with the women from a city not far away, to discover if they were indeed as willing as they seemed to offer their hospitality. He came back with a mildly stunned look about him.
“There’s no end to them,” he said, “and no limit. Women everywhere—and all it needs is a glance. They have no fathers to forbid, no brothers to defend them. They can do whatever they please. If they decide to take a man right where he stands, then they do it, and no one finds it strange.”
They were on the road then, Agni and those closest to him, riding to a city that was said to be greater than the others, the greatest in that region. It too lay near the wood, but farther south, in a gentler and yet more wooded country than that to which they had first come.
They traveled in a shifting escort of dark-eyed people, and most of those women or girls. The boys hung back, shy and seeming somewhat afraid.
If Agni ruled as king over them, they would learn to be bold as boys should be. He tilted a brow at Rahim. “Are you still irked with me because I won’t give you a war?”
“I still think that the men are getting restless,” Rahim said, “and spoiling for a fight. But if they can have women instead, any women they want—”
“They’ll grow soft,” Patir said, “and be fair prey for the men we never see. We’re being fattened for the slaughter. Can’t you see it?”