White Mare's Daughter

by Judith Tarr

  “I don’t think so,” Agni said. “These people are innocents. They’ll let us rule them if we refrain from killing them. Which in our minds makes them cowards, but in theirs . . . who knows? I think they know nothing of honor or dishonor. All they know is prosperity. Everything that they do, they do to preserve that.”

  “They’re weak,” Rahim said. “They’re soft. They’re delighted beyond words by the sight of a man who’s a man.”

  “What, are all theirs geldings?” Gauan lolled on his horse’s back. He had a fondness for the wine of this country, too much of one perhaps. Agni had not seen him other than sotted since they were given a whole ox-train laden with jars in return for the safety of a city some days’ journey south and west. “I’ll wager they cut the boys when they’re young, the way we geld colts, and only keep the best for stud. We are the best they’ve ever seen.”

  “They do love your yellow hair,” Taditi said.

  She had appeared that morning mounted on one of the geldings from the remounts’ herd, and riding him not too badly, either. “I want to see these cities,” she had informed Agni. “I’m tired of skulking in your tent.”

  Agni knew better than to take issue with her in front of his people. She was veiled, at least, as a woman should be, and she wore a properly modest robe, albeit with trousers and boots beneath.

  She had ridden in silence, keeping well behind him, until just now. He looked to find her close beside him, her eyes as bold as if she had been a woman of this country, and in front of his men, too.

  She dared him to reprimand her. He opened his mouth to do just that, but shut it again.

  Rahim seemed undismayed by her forwardness. “It’s not just yellow hair that lures them. Red hair, too. Brown, even. Anything that isn’t what they’ve looked at every day. We’re a new thing. We’re wonderful.”

  “You are full of yourself,” she said.

  He laughed. “I’m richer than I ever dreamed. Last night I had myself a whole hand of women. How can I not be happy?”

  “The gods bless us,” Agni said. “They’ve laid this country in our hands. It’s their will that makes it so simple.”

  “Earth Mother will have somewhat to say of that,” muttered Patir. Taditi shot him a glance of wintry approval.

  Agni wondered if he should feel beleaguered. It was difficult, riding in the sunlight, in the cool of morning and knowing it would be fiercely hot later. This green and settled country with its tilled fields and its dark-eyed people was beginning to seem a little less strange. They came out of their fields and villages to stare at the horsemen riding by, and once or twice he understood a word of what they said to one another. They called a horse a horse, as they called war by the name he knew.

  Often they brought gifts, running to meet him on the road, offering him whatever they had that was rich or unusual or beautiful. Flowers, sometimes, woven in garlands, or a soft-fleeced lamb, or a platter of sweet cakes. The young women stared at him boldly, the boys shyly: more boys and even men as he rode on, or maybe he had learned to notice them. They effaced themselves well in fields or among the houses, as women were supposed to do on the steppe.

  Not all or even many of the men who rode with him were as wary as Patir. Most trusted in the gods and in these people’s ignorance of aught but the word for war. This was the country of the blessed, given to them as a gift. Why might gods not give gifts to men whom they loved?

  Earth Mother might object, but she was only one, and she was old. The gods were younger, stronger, nearer to the world of the living.

  oOo

  So assured, and basking in sunlight, Agni entered the greatest of the cities that he had seen, a city of ten hundreds of people, or so he was told. Its circles stretched wide across a shallow valley, watered by a river and a blue bowl of lake. The high house in its center, which he knew now for their goddess’ holy place, rose to thrice the height of a man, with a high peaked roof and a painted gable.

  Its Mother was old and growing feeble. Her heir was no child herself, mother of many daughters. If they had been sons and she had been a king’s wife, she would have been reckoned a great lady among the tribes.

  The Mother and her heir had no great beauty, but the heir’s daughters were each lovelier than the last. In that house, over a feast of roast mutton and sweet wine, Agni discovered the joys and alarms of a man too eagerly sought after. He had heard of men quarrelling over a woman, but women did not, that he knew of, quarrel over a man. Or if they did, they kept it among themselves; not open and rather excessively lively, with the object of their attentions caught in the middle.

  It was scandalous. Agni would gladly have left them to it, but that would have offended the Mother.

  Nor was he a coward, to run away from a pack of women. He gritted his teeth and endured, even when they stroked and petted him, tugged his hair, glared at sisters who had found a choicer part of him to torment.

  Worse, his friends were laughing at him. They had their own flocks of admirers, eager beauties who had never heard of either shyness or circumspection.

  Rahim in particular reveled in it, and mocked Agni for a fool, to be so discomfited. “You could marry them all,” he said, “and never want for warm nights again.”

  Agni’s eyes rolled. “I want wives, not ravening she-wolves.”

  “Indulge them,” said Rahim. “Cherish them. Sing praises to the gods who set such delights in the world.”

  Agni’s response was more a yelp than a word, as the contention for his favors swelled into open battle. They did not strike and claw at one another. They made him their weapon instead, tugged and stroked, clutched and pulled.

  Just as he tensed to shake free, the Mother spoke a word.

  All his tormentors stopped at once. Their expressions were sullen. They were far from happy, but they were obedient. They settled for clinging close and glaring at one another across his body. He wondered if he would be forced to choose one or more of them, or if they would insist that he take them all.

  oOo

  As seemed to be the custom in this country, the feast ended before a feast among the tribes would have well begun. In an exchange of fierce glares, the eldest of the daughters rose and held out her hand to Agni. It was her right, her manner said, and she did not expect to be refused.

  She was very beautiful. Agni was not unwilling, but he was wary, casting a doubtful eye on the rest of the daughters. They scowled and sulked, but none contested the right of the eldest to claim the prize.

  Agni wondered what would happen if he pointed to another of the daughters—if he would break some law of these people, or give unpardonable offense.

  They were all beautiful. All, he was sure, were skilled in pleasing a man. It seemed to be a matter of pride among them.

  With a faint sigh he yielded to their custom, took the hand that he was offered and went where she led. He happened to notice as he left that Patir had taken the hand of another dark-eyed beauty, but Rahim sat alone, and Gauan too far gone in wine to care. He was rather surprised at Rahim. Women did indeed love his yellow hair.

  Then Agni was gone, taken away into an inner room, and his mind had space for little else but dark eyes and clever hands and breasts as ripe and sweet as the fruits with which she teased him, tempting him, slipping them into her own mouth just as he began to taste them. Her lips were stained red; her breath was fragrant. Her kisses were rich with sweetness.

  They made an art of bedplay here, as men among the tribes made an art of war. Agni could learn to crave it, if he allowed himself to slip so far.

  As of course he would not do. He was only half a fool.

  59

  Agni woke abruptly. It was dark but for the flicker of a lamp. He was alone. He lay for a while confused, remembering slowly where he was, and beginning to wonder what had become of the woman with the clever hands and the berry-sweetened kisses.

  Then he heard it again, what must have roused him: an outcry without. Voices raised in anger or indignation. W
omen’s voices, and a man’s rising above them, striving to drown them out.

  Rahim. And words that were almost clear. That sounded almost like, “She was asking for it. They’re all asking for it. Gods, make her stop!” And a woman’s voice either keening or cursing, Agni could not tell which.

  He found them in one of the outer rooms: a crowd of staring, babbling people, and Rahim in the midst of it, and one of the Mother’s daughters. She was cursing indeed, railing at Rahim, while two of her sisters held her back from leaping on him.

  Agni caught sight of Tillu in the back of the gathering, snared him with a fierce glance and brought him thrusting through the press. “Tell me,” Agni said.

  Tillu’s eyes were glittering; he looked as if he had been diving into the wine. But Agni smelled none of it on him. “It’s the girl,” he said in a tone so neutral it was flat—as if he were taking excessive care to be a voice and not a man. “She says he forced her.”

  “I did not!” Rahim cried; for Tillu’s words had sounded loud in sudden silence. “All the women here are willing. Every one.”

  “Then why,” Agni asked, “does she say that you forced her?”

  Rahim shrugged broadly. As he turned to catch the light, Agni saw the rich purple of a bruise about his eye, and a split and bleeding lip. “I heard her in here,” he said, “rummaging about, making more noise than she needed to. What was that for, if not to see if someone was listening?”

  “She said that she had come to look for a blanket, because one of her sisters stole her own,” Tillu said. “And he crept up on her from behind and wouldn’t let her go.”

  “Women struggle,” Rahim said. “It’s their way. When they say no, they want you to hear yes.”

  “Then he forced her,” said Tillu. “She fought, which she seems to think is a terrible thing, and he laughed and went on thrusting himself at her.”

  “Is that true?” Agni asked Rahim. His voice sounded dim and far away.

  Rahim did not seem to hear anything strange. “She was wriggling and writhing fit to drive a man mad. They’re hot-blooded, these western women. She even struck me—see? With her fist.”

  “She was fighting you,” Agni said, cold and still. “And you forced her. I was cast out of the tribe on suspicion of just such a thing. What makes you think that I shouldn’t do the same to you?”

  Even yet Rahim was barely dismayed. “That was a woman of the Red Deer, with a father and brothers and an ancient fool of a husband. This one has no men about her at all. And if she did—what would it matter? She’s no woman of the tribes. She’s as wanton as they all are here.” He paused. “Maybe this is it. Maybe this is the trap we’ve been dreading. She’s looking for a war, and finding it in me.”

  He was much too delighted with the thought. Agni said to him, “Then you don’t deny that she resisted you?”

  “She was teasing,” Rahim said. “How could she be unwilling? She was naked—she is naked. Look at her! She’s thrusting herself at you even while she curses me. They all do that, don’t they? All the women. They all want you.”

  Agni did not see that she was thrusting herself at anyone. She was trying, as best he could see, to escape her sisters’ hands and fling herself on Rahim. From the look in her eye, she meant to kill him.

  “Tillu,” Agni said, “speak to her for me. Ask her if it is true. If this man raped her.”

  Her eyes burned as Tillu spoke. She nodded vehemently, with such a snap that her teeth clicked together. She spat a mouthful of words.

  “She says,” said Tillu, “that she fought him from beginning to end. He only laughed at her. She wants—” He paused to draw a breath. “She wants him killed.”

  Agni held himself very still, made himself speak very steadily. “I thought these people knew nothing of bloodshed.”

  Tillu spoke as steadily as Agni had, with an overlay of gentleness that Agni found most interesting. The girl answered with calm all the more striking after the heat of her anger. “When a dog is rabid or a bull runs mad, we grant it the Lady’s mercy. We kill it. When a man forces himself on a woman, there is no worse offense, and no greater madness. Him too we grant the Lady’s mercy.”

  At last Rahim seemed to understand the gravity of what he had done. He blanched, who had been ruddy with indignation. “She asked for it!”

  “She says not,” Agni said. “Your face is testimony to the truth. These people do not strike blows—and yet this one struck to draw blood.”

  “And how willing was that woman of the Red Deer?”

  Agni looked into Rahim’s face. This had been his friend. Was still, beneath it all. And yet, looking at him, Agni saw the wreck of this thing that Agni had begun. To take all this country, to be given its wealth without need to shed blood for it—to hold and defend it, and make it strong—Agni had seen it in dreams since he came out of the wood.

  He tried to find words to make Rahim understand. “If she had been a woman of the tribe, would you have done such a thing? Would you have dared?”

  “She is not of the tribe,” Rahim said. “Do you understand? These are not people. They’re nothing to do with us.”

  “They are everything to do with us,” Agni said. “We’re outcast. Has it struck you even yet, what that means? We can’t go back to the White Horse. We’ll be killed if we try. We have to make our own tribe, and gather our own people.”

  “So we have done,” said Rahim. “We brought them with us: men of all the tribes that we passed. Those are ours. These are conquered people. They’re ours to do with as we will.”

  “There are,” Agni said, “uncounted numbers of them. I count three hundred of us.”

  “And none of them can do more than bruise a man’s face.”

  Agni shook his head. “You’ll never think like a king.”

  “I think like a man of the tribes,” Rahim said.

  Agni stood in impasse. Out of the cold place in his center he said, “Patir. Take this man and secure him. Tillu: if you will, find the Mother. She’s not in the house or she’d have heard this yowling.”

  They both did his bidding, and quickly. Even Rahim.

  The others, the Mother’s daughters, had gone silent, staring at Agni. He did not know why. His face could not be as terrible as that.

  It must be his quiet, and the anger that blew cold in him. If they could sense it, they might walk shy of it.

  Even the daughter who had been outraged was sitting in silence. She had a bruised look, a darkness about the eyes, that he had never seen before. Certainly not in the woman of the Red Deer, who had importuned him until he gave way.

  In war, men took women. That was the way of it. But even Rahim had not called this war. War was a hot thing, a madness of the blood. This was cold. It was folly, and none the less grim for that Rahim had not meant to err as terribly as he had.

  The Mother came at last—from the temple, Tillu said, where she had gone in response to a dream.

  “Better if she had stayed,” Agni said, “if this was what she dreamed of.”

  She nodded when she understood his words: heavily, with her eyes on her daughter.

  The girl had drawn into a knot. There was blood where she had been sitting, bright flecks of it. She rocked and shivered.

  “Dear gods,” Agni said. “Tillu. Ask the Mother. Was this girl a virgin?” It took rather a while for the Mother to understand. When she did, she shook her head, eyes wide as if she had never heard of such a thing.

  “She’s not,” Tillu said. “She says no woman has pain of—that. They see to it when the girls are young.”

  “Then,” said Agni, “she had best look to her daughter. She’s hurt, I think.”

  “Sweet Lady,” the Mother said; and more that was too swift for Tillu to render into Agni’s language. He managed the heart of it: “She is with child. If this has harmed the baby—the one who harmed it will pay the price. The price, she says—the price is his life.”

  “Is that not already forfeit under your law?” Agni as
ked her.

  “There might have been a lesser mercy,” the Mother said. “But if she loses the child, there is none for him but the Lady’s own.”

  Her voice was calm. She would not yield in this.

  If Agni compelled her to yield, what would come of it? She had no warriors, no weapons, no knowledge of fighting. She might curse him and all that he did, but he had his own gods, younger and stronger than her Lady.

  Those gods would have it be simple. His people were his people. These were other. They had no honor, nor did his own honor touch them. He was free with them to do whatever he pleased.

  But he had been raised to be a king. A king looked after the people over whom he found himself. That was the first lesson he had learned from his father.

  He needed another mind, other eyes. He needed keener wits than he had, just now. “Tillu,” he said, “I need you to be my messenger one last time. Find Taditi. Bring her quickly.”

  Tillu glanced at the Mother. She sat silent beside her daughter, holding her, stroking her sweat-dampened hair.

  There were no words that Agni could say that would move her. Tillu sighed, shook his head, and consented once more to do Agni’s bidding.

  oOo

  Taditi appeared almost as soon as Agni had summoned her. “No magic,” she said in the face of his surprise. “The story’s out. Where have you put Rahim?”

  “In a room here,” Agni answered, “with Patir to keep him there.”

  “That wasn’t badly done,” she said. She brushed past him to kneel beside the Mother.

  The Mother took her in in one long glance; seemed to see a spirit like her own; bent her head and sighed, and spread hands over her daughter’s body.

  “No,” said Taditi as if the Mother could understand. “This is not well done at all.”

  “Is she—” Agni began.

  “Yes,” said Taditi. “She’s losing it. Are you going to stand and watch, or are you going to do something useful?”

  Agni tensed to bolt, but held himself still. “That’s Rahim’s life if the baby dies. If I give way to these people. If I don’t—”