The Horse Road

by Troon Harrison

  There I was for one heartbeat, two, three – tall and invincible, riding the flow of the world with sun and wind in my eyes and two horses running beneath me.

  Gryphon opened his mouth and snaked his head out at the strange dun, teeth flashing. The dun swerved, tearing the reins from my hand. My feet shifted, my bruised leg stiffened, and the world spun. I hit the ground with a blow that darkened my sight and knocked the wind from my lungs. I rolled over and felt the ground vibrating as the horses galloped around, wild with the approaching storm.

  Hands pulled at me, rolling me over. ‘That was crazy,’ Batu said, grinning in admiration. ‘Are you dead?’

  I groaned and pushed him away. ‘Of course I’m dead. Let me stand up.’

  The packed ranks of soldiers cheered when I staggered to my feet but I glimpsed Chang scowling as he caught the dun and Gryphon and led them over to Sheng Mu. I stumbled after him and stared into Sheng’s dark eyes, willing myself not to show fear although my ribs were tight and my heart was thumping. I could not speak a word, not in that moment of decision, not while Swan’s fate trembled in the balance. At that moment, I could not even have spoken her name to save her.

  Sheng Mu smiled. ‘Two skilled riders, both deserving of honour. Great feats of horsemanship have entertained us. Who should win? My rider, Cheng, had more lances hit the targets, and won the swordplay. His chariot driving was magnificent. At the pole bending, there was no winner for the horses raced neck and neck.’

  He tapped the roll of parchment, that held our trade agreement, lightly against the palm of one hand as he regarded us.

  ‘Honourable lady of the House of Iona,’ he said at last, ‘you won the archery, and your attempt to ride two horses was magnificent though foolish. Take your white mare and return home. My caravan will come to your doors next spring with silk. You did not win everything, but you rode splendidly although you are young and only a girl. Take your white mare home.’

  I fell to my knees as though I had been hit from behind. Batu’s hands were under my arms, pulling me up. Lila had her arms around my shoulders. I lifted my chin and stared straight into the eyes of the foreign horseman. ‘I thank you for your trade agreement,’ I said. ‘I thank you for the honour of dealing with so noble a man.’

  When Swan was led forward, I buried my face in her neck, I ran my hands over every part of her. Then I had her blanketed, and I pulled my stiff, aching body on to her smooth white back, and turned her head westwards, holding Gryphon alongside on a lead rope. ‘Do you wish still to be my servant, or to go east with these men over the roof of the world to your mother’s people?’ I asked Sayeh.

  She pondered for a moment, her narrow face inscrutable and her eyes like shuttered windows. Then she turned the mule to follow me. ‘I will stay with you and your horses,’ she said, and left the camp without a backward glance. We rode until the army camp lay behind us, and then Batu drew rein where the track into the hills swung away from the valley road.

  ‘The men and I are going back to our tribe now,’ he said. ‘Do you remember the eagles we saw nesting in the pass on the day that the army arrived? I am going to return there and catch an eaglet before they grow any older. If they have time to grow much bigger, they will carry me away to their nest and train me to hunt marmots for them!’

  Our eyes locked for a long moment. ‘I will come to your pastures soon, to bring back the two-year-old herd,’ I replied. ‘Make sure you are in your father’s yurt when I come, and not chewing marmot in a nest.’

  He laughed, throwing his head back, the wild wind whipping his mane of black hair beneath his hat of wolf fur. Then his gaze sobered. ‘The days will be long until you come,’ he said, and leaned from Rain to kiss my flushed cheek. Then he turned Rain’s head towards the foothills.

  ‘What about Mountain?’ I called, realising that Lila was still mounted on the appaloosa.

  ‘You can bring Mountain with you when you come for your herd,’ he called back. ‘I will expect him fat and well-groomed!’ He kicked Rain into a trot, the other nomads keeping pace beside him.

  ‘Aiyee, he is going to try and be a man now!’ one of the nomads teased, slapping Batu’s shoulder. ‘A real man needs a fast horse, a good hound, and an eagle. He is going to see if he can manage this!’

  Their bantering and laughter carried back to us as we watched them dwindle into the distance. When they were almost out of earshot, I raised my voice and cried, ‘The starry sky at night –’

  ‘– is a black horse decorated with pearls!’ Batu called back, our old childhood password.

  I smiled to myself, squinting my eyes until the riders passed from sight down a dip in the land and into a grove of windblown willows.

  The rain began to fall then, great cool drops that hit my face and hands, and wetted my dry tongue when I stuck it out. Drops shimmered like pearls in Swan’s white mane. A thick curtain of rain draped across the valley like a swathe of silk, and the citadel of Ershi lay upon it like an embroidered pattern as we headed our horses for home.

  Chapter 18

  It was still raining three days later when my father’s party rode through the western gate of the city and clattered up the streets to pour into our courtyard in a tumult of noise and commotion. I flew down the stairs and into my father’s arms, pressing myself against the great barrel of his chest, the curve of his belly beneath a robe stained with mud and smelling of wet camels. His thick fingers stroked my curls and I felt safe for the first time in many weeks.

  ‘My sweet peach,’ he said fondly. ‘What have you been doing?’ And he ran a broad thumb across my cheeks, where scratches from thorny branches, falling stones, and baked ground were still visible. But there was no time to reply then, for my mother came down the stairs, pale and queenly, her blue eyes blazing with light, her wide mouth smiling. She held herself so erect and straight that not even my father noticed how her left arm hung stiff as a dead branch from the tight knitting of her wounds. He took her into his arms and held her for a long time in silence, while I turned to my brothers: dark Petros with his sweet solemn smile, and tall golden Jaison with his boisterous embrace. Fardad ran around flapping his arms, and Marjan stood in the kitchen door watching while camels were commanded to kneel; while Sayeh slipped between the horses and donkeys, removing tack; while bundles of trade goods and bales of fabric and casks of wine were unloaded and dragged into the storage room. My father began striding around, giving orders as the beasts were unloaded. ‘Bring that one, no, not that one – that casket there! And that package! Bring them inside.’

  Finally we were all sprawled on divans upstairs, drinking tea and eating sugared almonds while Marjan lit a brazier in the centre of the room to take the dampness from the air. My father was already retelling his many stories, the gossip of the trade routes, the news of the world’s great cities and ports, their foreign peoples, their strange customs, and all the amusing and entertaining things that had happened to him. Rivers rolled off my father’s tongue, and mountains were scaled in the space of minutes, and exotic foods that were hard to imagine wove their fragrances into the air as he talked. Then there were the gifts to open, to unwrap from their oiled coverings, to take from their caskets: soaps perfumed with jasmine and sandalwood, perfume in a glass bottle, a red plate decorated with black chariot horses, ivory hair combs, a saddle blanket for Swan with stripes of blue and white. And for my mother, there were tapestries, and plates of chased silver, and a bridle with rubies on the brow band and a gold-plated bit. After all this, my father and brothers went off to the bath house for a long soak for my father said that the dust of the continent was ground into his skin like spices being ground into raw meat.

  It was not until evening that the rain slackened into silence, and I prepared to dine with my parents upon the roof while my brothers went off into the town to visit their friends. I dressed carefully in a robe of pale blue velvet with embroidered hems of silver stars and lilies, and wound a strand of pearls – one my father had just brought for m
e – around my neck. Brushing my hair for a long time, and curling it around my fingers, I rehearsed what I was going to say when I stood before my parents. I will not stutter or stammer, I thought. I will not blush or drop my head. The girl who used to behave like that is gone; she is left behind on the other side of the war and now I have closed the door on her timidity.

  Sayeh brought me a green ceramic bowl, made by the potters in our valley, and containing water in which I washed all my rings. Then I held my face very still while she lined my eyes with kohl, and brushed powder upon my cheeks.

  ‘Do I look older?’ I asked anxiously but Sayeh only shrugged her bony shoulders and replied, ‘Here are your sandals,’ as she laid them at my feet. The plaited straps felt flimsy and strange when I slipped my toes between them, for I had worn only riding boots for many weeks. The soft drapery of my robe felt equally strange against my legs as I climbed the steps to the rooftop.

  My parents both turned their heads as I paced across the flat surface towards where they sat on stools placed upon a knotted carpet. Beyond them, the valley was cloaked in a mist of new green growth, like a gauzy veil, and it burned fiery bright as the sun finally broke through the clouds and stroked the fields with long fingers. A bird began to sing in the apricot trees beyond our wall.

  My father beamed at me. His face was soft and tired above the oiled curls of his long beard, threaded with the first few strands of grey, but his eyes were bright beneath their heavy lids.

  ‘Be seated, daughter,’ he said. ‘Your mother has just been telling me of all you have done in my absence. It is a tale more remarkable than any I have heard in months of travelling. Who would have thought my plump dove was such a fierce spirit after all?’

  I flushed in spite of myself, and ducked my head shyly at his praise.

  ‘I am not as plump as I used to be, Father,’ I said, and my mother gave an uncharacteristic snort of laughter. My father’s hands, clasped loosely across his belly, rose and fell as he chuckled.

  I lifted my head and stared him in the eye. ‘Father, I will not marry Arash,’ I said calmly. ‘He is a boy without honour. He is skilled in deceit, and though he can draw a bow, and ride a horse, he is a boy who lives by lies.’

  My father inclined his head thoughtfully; he could not argue with my reasoning. The boys in our city, whether Greek or Persian, were taught these three things first and above all else: to ride, to shoot, to tell the truth. Only the evil Angra could approve of a man who was dishonest.

  The fleeting sun spilled over my father’s striped robe of Syrian damask, and cast the shadow of his heavy nose across the generous curves of his mouth. At his side, my mother was as still and tautly upright as a leopard hunting in the long grass.

  ‘Father,’ I entreated softly, ‘I cannot marry him.’

  Still my father reflected, lifting his onyx drinking horn carved in the form of an antelope, and taking a long sip of his wine. He considered it as it ran over his tongue. The evening sun sucked mist from the wet fields and the canals so that it rose over the valley soft as thistledown. Above my left shoulder, the palace’s sprawling ramparts flared red, and the peaks of the snowy Alay Mountains gleamed brightly white as teeth.

  My father gave a long sigh and set his drinking horn down.

  ‘If you will not marry him, what is to become of you?’ he asked.

  I shrugged, feeling myself tugged and stretched the way I had been once before, gripping Gryphon’s tail as he struggled to pull me from the dark jaws of the tomb. For what was to become of me? The distant mountains called to me on the still air; their voices were like wind sighing in grass, like rivers murmuring over cold stones, like the singing of wolves and the drumbeat of horse hooves. But here, here in the valley, was where I had caught foals wet from their mothers’ bellies, had quenched my thirst with the sweetness of summer grapes, had trained Swan and Gryphon in the pastures around my mother’s stables while red poppies lit the grass on fire.

  ‘What is to become of you?’ my father asked again.

  ‘There is Batu,’ my mother said. ‘He is the son of a white bone chief, and heir to good pasture and fine herds. He is honourable and loyal, and will hunt with eagles when he is a man.’

  ‘Nomads,’ my father grumbled. ‘Does this girl seated before us look as though she has been raised to live in a tent, cooking food inside sheep bellies? No! Whether she likes it or not, she has been raised in luxury. She might be a warrior when life requires it, but at night she sleeps in an imported bed and not on the ground with her feet in the fire! I am not letting her marry a nomad!’

  ‘Perhaps she is too young to be married anyway,’ my mother said soothingly, and my father subsided with a grunt.

  ‘I have an idea,’ I said, and my parents’ eyes flickered away from each other and stared at me with such intensity that I squirmed. Then I straightened my shoulders and drew myself up as tall as I could.

  ‘I would like my bride-wealth now,’ I said clearly. ‘I would like Swan, and her yearling filly, Pearl. I would like some of the two-year-old mares that are in Berta’s care, and I would like some of the other yearlings. I would like a stable to keep them in, on Mother’s farm, and I would like some pasture to run them in. I would like my own brand for their quarters, a full star.’

  There was a long silence. A camel bellowed; the sun slipped from the palace, and long purple shadows puddled at the feet of the mountains and stretched across the plain.

  ‘A horse trainer,’ my mother said softly, and a glow of pride kindled in her eyes.

  ‘Could she do this?’ my father asked.

  ‘She has arranged a trade deal for the House of Iona with the silk caravans that will begin coming to our city now from the east. She has brought wealth and fortune to us, and made a shrewd bargain with this foreign man, Sheng Mu. Already, they are saying there will be a silk road over the mountains, that the caravans will journey along it bringing us bolts of fabric in exchange for our Persian horses. Your daughter has made sure that bolts of silk will come to your warehouse, that the trade goods of east and west will meet here in Ershi, and bring you riches. Of course she is capable of raising and training horses!’

  My mother’s eyes locked on to my face and I felt it at last: the praise I had sought from her all my life, since I was a chubby child with legs so tired they could barely grip a horse. A glow of pleasure warmed me inside my soft robe.

  My father nodded and took another long sip of wine. ‘Yes, so be it,’ he said at last. ‘Kallisto, I will not give you your mother’s pastures or stables, but you shall have your own. There is land for sale in the valley, adjacent to your mother’s farm, and I shall have the deeds of purchase drawn up in your name. You shall raise horses with your mother’s help, and when Sheng Mu’s caravans arrive next summer, you shall receive some of the silk that he sends. Perhaps it will not be called the silk road, that path over the mountains, but the horse road! And you, my sweet peach, you will be part of its history.’

  He raised his drinking horn to me in a silent toast, and drained its contents as the servants arrived bearing trays of steaming rice, beans with coriander, and meat braised in garlic and sesame seeds. My father fell to eating with gusto but every so often, I felt his eyes leave his plate to linger quizzically upon me.

  ‘And how did you know,’ he asked at last, wiping his mouth on a flat bread, ‘how did you know how to write up this trade agreement with Sheng Mu?’

  I laughed. ‘Oh, Father, that was easy! Remember how you taught me my numbers? One camel-load is the basic unit of measurement. A donkey-load is worth only half a camel-load. But a wagon-load is worth four camel-loads. This was how you taught me to do sums!’

  My father laughed, his chest vibrating, and ran his hand tenderly down my mother’s stiff arm, caressing the lines of her wounds with the tips of his fingers. ‘Such a daughter you have given me,’ he said.

  ‘What about Failak, the warlord?’ I asked.

  My father’s face darkened into a deep scowl. ‘He wi
ll never trade in this city again – I shall see to it! And your mother is going to speak to Berta’s people about riding against him, and driving him from his stolen valley!’

  I gulped and took a deep breath. ‘I left all my jewels under a mattress in his house,’ I said but my father waved a hand dismissively.

  ‘When you begin selling your horses with their star brands, you will not need your old father to buy your jewels. You can buy your own then!’

  ‘Thank you, Father!’

  I rose and kissed my mother’s cheek; it was still too thin, but warm and firm beneath my lips, and her grip on my wrist was as strong as it had ever been while she kissed me in return. My father pressed my head to his chest and stroked my hair and patted my cheeks. ‘Too many scratches. Put some salve on them or I will never find you a husband!’ he joked.

  ‘Yes, Father,’ I said with a giggle, and then I ran down the stairs two at a time. Camels were dozing in the courtyard, and donkeys drank from the full water trough. I ducked into the stable’s fragrance of straw and grain, and called her name. Swan’s pale sculpted face turned to me in the dusk while her nostrils fluttered in a loving nicker.

  ‘Your foals will journey far, over the horse road,’ I whispered, stroking my hands over her muzzle. ‘But you, you will stay with me for always!’

  Then I laid my face against her shoulder, and peace ran through me like a shining river.