The Birthgrave (12 page)

“Men are foolish,” Asutoo said gravely, “but the gods saved you, and gave you strength for your battles.”

He had been speaking in the tribal tongue, and he did not seem amazed that an outsider knew it. No doubt the gods had given me that too. I asked him what the disc and star represented.

He touched the tattoo on his chest, and said: “The sky sign of the gods. Above we see the stars which are the silver chariots of the gods. Sometimes they ride to earth in them, and the ground burns black. The father of the father of my chief was visited by the gods. They wore silver and must not be touched. Since then we have borne their symbol, and the chief takes the Star-jewel on his forehead.”

* * *

We reached the krarl in late afternoon light, where it lay, a safe three days' journey from the High-Lord's Way, the cursed road the tribes would not go near or travel, or even cross, except in the greatest extremity.

The camp was on lower ground, built around a large strip of water where gray-green trees grew. It was circled by a stockade of wooden poles, with men walking up and down, seven-foot spears in their hands. The six tribes had settled in one place. There were many hundreds of tents, all black; from a distance it looked as if an enormous flock of ravens had settled there. Goats and cows wandered freely, dropping haphazard dung. Some women, tiny as fleas, were washing clothes in the water. Most were cooking at a great ring of fires in the center of the krarl.

We went through the gate, which was iron, and obviously a separate thing from the poles. Children and goats stared at us. The caravan began to split up. Soon, only Darak and a captain or two remained with the chiefs, and I remained with them also, because of Asutoo. We toured the krarl and the large horse pens at the back. This was actually disguised business dealing, for a lot of Darak's sale here would be barter. We needed horses, particularly since Kee-ool, and these were very fine, all bronzes and chestnuts, and mostly unbroken. Darak grinned, and pointed out the largest of a bunch of females, and the worst tempered.

“That one is Sarroka—Devil Mare,” the star chief said. “She is bred virgin, and hates the feel of any male on her back, horse or man.”

I knew Darak would not resist that. He must conquer anything that opposed him. He dismounted, and the mare rolled her eyes and showed her teeth, sensing his intention.

The chief nodded. Two warriors ran around the pen, and opened a little gate into the fenced pasture behind. They called her name, and held out tidbits. It was easy enough to see they had been ready for Darak's interest. Sarroka would not take the stuff from their hands. They put it down for her, got the gate shut, and vaulted out.

“Take her now, Darak,” the chief said. “You will never get near her once she's done eating.”

Darak unlaced the black merchant's tunic, and hung it carefully on his saddle. His brown back rippled disdainful muscle. He went lightly over the fencing, and waited till the mare was finished and had lifted her head. He called her then, and she turned and snarled back her lips. Darak laughed softly, excited by the challenge of her. She stamped and whinnied, then flung around and ran. Darak ran too, so fast he was beside her. As she turned the corner of the pasture field, slowing a little, he caught her by her brassy blowing mane, set the ball of his right foot against her, and swung the inner left leg over, using her flank as a pivot. It was an incredible trick, and very dangerous, but it got him on her back. Darak's men and even some of the warriors called out their applause, but the mare was mad. She threw herself up and sideways, bucked and kicked her heels, and screamed her furious fear. She could not shift him. He held her around the neck, constricting her great windpipe with his arm. It hampered her breathing, and tired her quicker. Round and round she ran, flagging, like a great bronze wheel running down.

Finally, she was still. Her head drooped and she streamed sweat. Darak slid from her easily. He led her back across the pasture and picked up a sweetmeat still lying in the grass. He held it to her, and she shook her head and would not accept it. Darak let fall the sweet, and climbed out. He, too, glistened sweat, his body metallic. He looked uniquely handsome and very angry, everything about him highlighted by the low sun.

“Well,” he said, “I've saved your men some trouble.”

“Sarroka must be yours,” the chief said.

“My thanks, but I don't want her.”

The chief shrugged.

I hated Darak. He had broken her for the sake of his vanity, and now, because she did not love him for it, he abandoned her. If he had let her alone, perhaps these warriors might have given her up and let her free again.

* * *

The sun sank, and the feast began.

We sat around the fire ring on hide cushions, the six chiefs and their sons, Darak and his captains, and I. Over our heads a canopy drooped its scarlet wings. Women in black robes and young boys served out food and drink. It is the tribal way to hem a boy in with mother and sisters till he is sick of them, and runs off to kill a plains wolf in winter, or catch a wild horse, or go to fight, if there is a war, and so prove himself a man. The women all wore the shireen, but the eyepieces were wider than mine, and often embroidered or beaded. They stared nervously at me, and slipped away to be replaced by others with the next course, all equally curious. The food was plentiful and smelled spicy, but the warriors did not touch the roast meat. The kill had been for Darak and his men only. I ate nothing except a bit of the formal bread they break before each meal, which must be taken if one is a friend. I drank a little of their wine, but that was all. They respected my frugality. Their warriors would fast, too, their chief said, before a battle. I was used to the pains and cramps that came, and they did not trouble me much.

The feast ended, but the drinking went on. They passed around cups of an alcohol made from goat's milk mixed with the bark of some tree. Darak did not take much of this, but the chiefs and their men drank deep.

The conversation began to move around to bargaining talk after that. I was not very interested in it, it was such a game, the chiefs and Darak beating each other back through impossible conditions to their very last defenses, which were, in fact, what they had intended to settle on all the time. In the end, it was mainly knives they wanted, and Darak achieved horses and a cloth their women made for which there was a demand in the towns. Some money passed hands also, and little bags of dull red counters that were, I think, chips of unpolished precious stones, possibly garnets.

I felt exhausted by this time. The fumes of the wine I had not even drunk had got into my head, my eyes smarted from the fire. Through the smoke I saw seven or eight girls come to dance for us. They wore white shireens, but although their faces were covered, their bodies were almost naked. A thin leather strap passed around their backs, under their arms, to fasten above their breasts with a gold buckle. From these straps hung tassels of white wool, which hid them occasionally but not often. There was a similar arrangement around their hips, and although the tassels were more numerous, and some of them red or blue, they were equally unsuccessful in the pursuit of modesty. Their bodies were lean and brown like their men's, but they were beautiful for all that.

The chief was courteously asking Darak to choose a woman, and, once Darak had chosen, the other bandits picked what they wanted. Perhaps I should not have been surprised when the chief leaned toward me.

“And you, also, warrior. Which girl for your sleeping place in the krarl?”

I had not realized this, too, was a custom among their woman fighters. After a second, I said to him in the tribal tongue, “You honor me, my father, but though I will fight as a man, I am still woman enough that I do not lie with women. Therefore only do I refuse your gracious gift.”

He made a movement with his hand which meant, “That is fair,” and he said, “Choose, then, a warrior for your pleasure. Such a woman as yourself is held highly in the krarls. No man but will be glad.”

I saw Darak's face across the smoky glare break into a hard smile. He wanted me bewildered by the situation, stuttering my refusal which he would then have to smooth over with the chief, explaining my basic weak feminine nervousness.

What a stranger and an enemy I had in this man I seemed to love.

I bowed to the chief. I turned and put my hand on Asutoo's broad naked shoulder. I felt his flesh quicken under my fingers, and was thankful for it.

The chief grinned and nodded several times.

“A good choice. Had I been younger you might have put your hand on me.”

“I would not dare to set my hope so high,” I said.

The ritual was successfully completed.

I would not let myself look back at Darak's face.

* * *

The feast broke up soon after. Boys with torches came to show us our separate tents. I thought Darak started to move after me; I heard a little uneasy sound, and some of the warriors had got in his way. I did not look back as I walked with Asutoo behind the golden tongue of light.

The tent was small but adequate. We ducked inside. There were rugs on the floor, and a stand in which the boy stuck the torch, and then went out. I looked at Asutoo. His face was slightly flushed, his eyes bright. He was a little drunk, but not dangerously so, and he did not seem aggrieved.

“I hope I have not angered my brother by choosing him,” I said.

“I was happy,” Asutoo said. His color deepened further. “It seems strange to me my chief did not see you are a woman too.”

“One thing, my brother,” I said. “You know I will not uncover my face.”

“I did not expect it. The whores will uncover for any man, but you are warrior and princess too.”

He seemed to know me beyond his knowledge of me, even allowing for the formal courtesy of the tribal tongue.

We undressed, the torchlight glittering around us, and, for all his youth, he was well-formed, and economical in his movements. He dipped the torch into the sand pouch of the stand, and we lay down in the dark. I was very careful that he should not realize my physical differences. I was not this time defenseless with love, and vulnerable.

I was afraid I should make him Darak in my mind, but it would have been difficult, and I was glad of it. He was very different in every way—I had only to touch his clubbed hair, his skin; the smell and taste of him were unfamiliar. The act was pleasure, but there was no true possession. Darak took, but Asutoo borrowed—there is no other way to describe it. Beyond the pinnacle, on either side, hung an expectancy that never quite went out. We were too well-mannered with each other, that is all.

* * *

Dawn slid under the door in a white thread.

Outside I heard movement, horses, and shouting, and the sounds of departure to which I was so used. I dressed, leaned over Asutoo and gently touched his face. His eyes opened on me sleepily, and he smiled.

“They are leaving,” I said. “I must go.”

His face changed. He woke up fully, stretched himself, began to dress.

I was at the flap when he said, “Why do you ride with that man?”

There was something in his voice I had not heard there before.

“I am one of Darak's people,” I said.

“No. You are of the tribes.”

“I must go, Asutoo. There has been happiness between us, but the dawn parts day from night, and this is our parting, too.”

He was silent, and I went out.

They were going earlier than expected. Men were bringing the horses due to Darak, and bales of colored cloth. Food was coming too, and the bandits were eating as they moved about. The chief looked indulgent at this breach of etiquette, for he was well satisfied. The knives and other weapons they had chosen lay in heaps, the warriors pawing among them anxiously. There would be a meeting later, and an official handing out.

Darak was on his horse. His head was thrown back as he poured some drink or other down his throat from a clay bowl. Maggur came striding to me and grinned.

“That one is very angry,” he remarked, not looking at Darak. “He would have stopped you last night, but these naked braves got in the way.”

Darak had turned and seen me. He spat the last mouthful of drink onto the ground, and moved his horse around.

Maggur had found me my horse, and mounted his beside me. Most of the men were up now. It was time to be away. A sense of storm hung in the air.

“Our thanks for your hospitality,” Darak said to the chief.

The chief nodded. I saw Asutoo walk forward, and stand a few feet from his father's side. He looked at Darak, and Darak pulled hard on his rein so that his horse jerked up its head, and kicked its front legs through a cook fire, showering Asutoo's feet with charcoal.

Asutoo did not move. He said: “Give me leave, my chief, to speak to our guest and brother before he goes from us.” The chief, frowning, made the gesture of consent. But Asutoo did not speak at once. “Well?” Darak said.

“My words are not for you only, Darak hill-rider. I speak to your warrior, the woman.” Asutoo looked at me across the horses. “You know the little I have to offer you, but if you will be my wife, and live with my tribe, you shall have all the honor you merit. I will not stop you riding to battle; you shall ride before me. You shall not be as a woman in my tent, but as my brother. I will have other wives to tend me. I ask you because I know you are a woman too.”

A pain went through me, sharp as a knife. There was a sudden longing in me to stay, to be his wife, and ride with him, and later perhaps to bear him children, and be a female only, and a slave as the others were. I knew he would love me, and leave me myself. He would let me search out my past and the Green Jade, once I had persuaded him. But somehow I could not speak.

There was a silence. I could not look at Darak's face, I knew the contempt that would be on it. In a moment he would say to me: “Well, then, take him, and my blessing on you both.” But Darak did not speak either.