The Birthgrave (15 page)

He took my arm and led me across the room, the other rooms, across the vestibule, through the portico and the terraced gardens onto the street. I suppose that was the way we went. I did not see it.

3

The night was cool, not cold. Not many lights now, burning in window spaces. Braziers on street corners threw orange color in our faces. The moon too was orange, lower and less distinct.

Abruptly, the thought of the hostelry seemed unpleasant and oppressive.

“I do not want to go back to that room,” I said to Darak.

He turned to Ellak, and the others on their horses, without any hesitation. A shut-in place was not a happy place for Darak in any case.

“Go back on your own. We're going another way.”

They swung off at once, except for Maggur.

“Well, you great bull, what are you waiting for?”

“Bad to walk alone in a town by night,” Maggur said. Earnestly he added: “There may be pickpockets and robbers about.”

Darak looked quite blank.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “A law-abiding man such as myself forgets these hazards.”

Maggur grinned.

“Ride off, you fool,” Darak said. “I can take care of anything we meet. Besides, there are the warden's soldiers prowling the streets every night to keep order. I can always call one of those.” He slapped Maggur's horse on the rump, and it ran off, Maggur still grinning on its back.

So we walked.

It was a strange, quiet time between us. We did not speak for a long while, or even move close together. Yet he did not seem uneasy with me. Once, when two of the patrolling guards swung by, he put his arm around me. They scarcely glanced at us, two lovers coming home from a supper, perhaps.

There was a little river that ran through Ankurum, stonewalled, but very shallow. Things floated on it which the townspeople had thrown in: broken clay bowls, fruit peel, a little white, drowned doll. We followed this river, a perilous enterprise, which meant clambering over walls, rustling across private gardens, and through wastelands sharp with stinging weeds. We were children then, muffling laughter, slipping by the dark windows. At last the river ran underground, its stone mouth narrowing among a group of trees, where flowers turned pale faces up to us from the rank grass.

“Soon be dawn,” Darak said. He pushed me back against a trunk, lifted the veil of the shireen a little, and kissed me.

“Darak,” I said. I leaned against him and shut my eyes. “Darak, I am afraid. Afraid of myself.”

He held me away from him.

“We are all afraid of ourselves,” he said. “Not all of us know it.”

It did not seem surprising for him to understand such a thing, this bandit, who burned now only to risk his neck in the arena.

* * *

When we left that place there was the unmistakable dawn scent in the air.

We saw then what made free in the formal and civilized streets of Ankurum. Large frogs burped at us from every garden, some on the walls, staring with their jewels of eyes. On the paving, a colony of snails nibbled at grass between the flags. Two hill foxes, silvery in the dark, their tails stiff, their heads disdainful, padded by us on a main thoroughfare. A little ahead, one waited courteously for the other to relieve itself against an archway. Then both ran around a corner on their ticking paws.

I turned my head to look at a huge white star, amazed at its brilliance and size in the lightening sky. We were in an open place, the buildings around us not very high. I stopped.

“Look,” I said.

We watched the star, which, even though we were still, continued to move. It slid slowly as a blazing tear over the roofs of Ankurum.

“Now what is
that?”
Darak said softly.

I thought of Asutoo, and his talk of gods who rode the sky in silver chariots, and came sometimes to earth. A sudden terror seized me that the thing would fall into this street, blazing bright, disgorging beautiful burning giants, whose look would melt flesh from bone.

But suddenly, as if it sensed scrutiny, the star speeded, vanished into cloud, and was gone.

We stood silent in the street. My body prickled. I felt abruptly that we were not alone. Very slowly, I turned, looking around me. There were shadows everywhere, yet none of them seemed filled. I shook the feeling from my shoulders.

“Darak,” I said, “let that moving light be an omen. I will ride with you in the Sagare.”

But if omen, then black omen. There was a sense of doom in me. I would go with him because I was compelled by fear. A dark thing in my mind uncoiled itself, length by length. It whispered, soft as the rustle of silk, that he would die in the Sirkunix at Ankurum, having tempted death too often.

4

The man came early from Raspar, and had to wait for us. We had woken late, still twined, in the hostelry bed. Our clothes, everything, lay on the floor. The white silk of the dress, born only yesterday, was crushed and rumpled, torn at the hem and knees from the places we had trampled through, stained brown and green by moss. The jades were still around my neck, and Darak, lying over me, had impressed their shapes into my throat.

When we were ready, Raspar's servant, a sallow fidgety young man, led us out to the stables. Darak, Ellak, Maggur, and I followed on our horses his fat reddish mare, and were conducted through the winding streets of Ankurum, empty of foxes, out of the Ring Gate, and up into the higher hills.

It was a sharp blue morning, the air very pure and cold. The mountains seemed closer and more distinct the farther one rose, gray, stippled with white and, lower down, heavy with pines. We passed a small stone temple with red pillars, set up to the goddess of the vine.

The farm was only an hour or so away from the town, but a rich one, producing wine and cheeses besides its prospective horses. It seemed Raspar liked to dip into every pie. The buildings, Ankurum stone, with russet roofs, all matted by the legendary vine, stood around a square court. Beyond were vineyards, and meadows of milch cows, an orchard or two, and past these, in the distance, the horse fields.

A brown-robed Raspar, courteous yet brisk, had wine brought to us, but did not waste time on formality. In an open carriage we trundled out across the fertile acres. He glanced at me and my male clothes quizzically once or twice, but said nothing. To Darak he chatted amiably about the land and its yield.

“The Warden himself will have nothing but my cheese on his table,” he said. “A great honor.” It was obvious that Raspar was not at all honored, simply amused at the boost it gave his produce.

The grape harvest had already begun. Women moved along the terraces, baskets on tilted hips. Ellak eyed them thoughtfully.

Poplars lined the avenue between the horse fields. Blacks, grays, chestnuts turned and galloped away from us, tossing their long heads. We passed among another group of buildings, stables and barns presumably. Beyond was a great open place, shaped in a huge oval, fenced around by a high hedge of stakes. At the center, another smaller oval, this time a raised platform of piled rock.

The carriage stopped.

“The practice track,” Raspar announced smoothly.

We got out, and a man came toward us from one of the stone buildings. He was lean and tanned, sun-wrinkled around the eyes black and darting as a lizard's. He limped a little, his right side leaning curiously atwist, away from the arm that no longer hung on it. The left arm ended at the wrist. He was still some distance from us as Raspar murmured:

“This is Bellan. He has been my man since the chariots did for him in Coppain two years ago. Now he is my horsemaster. He has run many races like the Sagare, and won all of them.”

Bellan reached us, bowed to Raspar, flicked his eyes over us. I had expected bitterness, hatred even. Surely there was hatred at least for Darak, straight and tall, the charioteer Bellan would never be again. But I sensed none of this. He smiled and nodded to Darak as Raspar brought them together. He seemed friendly, yet noncommittal. His voice was deep, oddly pleasing to the ear.

“If the gentleman is ready, I have a chariot for him.”

A groom came around the buildings, leading a plain metal car with three chestnuts in the shafts.

“To cut your teeth on,” Raspar remarked. “The blacks come later. Take one lap.”

A gate section in the fence was pushed open, the chariot and team led through. The horses pawed the ground and shook their heads; for all they were not the wild black prides of Raspar, they were still racers, volatile and nervous. Darak studied them a moment, stripped his tunic, gave it to Ellak, then leaned on a carriage wheel while Maggur pulled off his boots.

Bellan gave a small approving grunt.

Darak went in at the gate and around to the horses. He fondled them a little, talking to them, then, apparently satisfied, he mounted the chariot. He unwound the plaited reins from the prow-boss, shook them out, flicked them, and the horses started forward. They were badly matched for a team, and moved unevenly; the chariot bumped, but Darak had their measure in that second. The right outsider he let alone, the left insider he pulled back hard, and the center horse he slapped lightly with the rein, making him start ahead. The chariot moved, slow at first, little more than a walk. I saw him shift, getting the balance of the car, his bare feet testing with their own senses. The unevenness flowed from the three chestnuts as they felt the guide of the reins, compelling or restraining. They settled, joined, and he began to give them their head. Halfway up the track the reins moved slack and tautened, and abruptly they were galloping. I saw Darak had indeed known chariots, though where or when I did not understand. They seemed one thing now, one flying thing, a unison of movement. Dust clouded up, acrid gold in the sunlight. I glanced around. Ellak was grinning, Raspar stroking his chin, smiling slightly. Bellan, at the stake fence, was leaning forward. His eyes glittered, at the same moment almost unfocused. He was breathing fast, nostrils flared, his feet restless, the ruined left arm twitching. He, too, rode the chariot.

They took the turn, light and sweeping, a bright blur behind the rock platform, which represented the Skora of the Sirkunix. The second turn, and through the dust billows, the straining copper power held back. The chariot slowed and stopped. Darak looked at us.

“Good horses, Raspar, but ill matched.”

“I know it. You've earned better.”

The chestnuts, angry at this abrupt terminus of their flight, started forward again. Darak pulled them hard, and the groom ran in to release them and lead them away.

Darak came out of the enclosure, his brown body slightly whitened by the dust.

“Well, Bellan?” Raspar asked.

“Yes,” Bellan said. He turned to Darak. “A man for chariots has a look to him, like the lion in the desert—well-hidden, but easy to spot when it moves. Have you never raced before?”

“Not in a stadium. There was a track at”—Darak hesitated, not wanting to name any place he had visited in the past—“at a town I stayed in. I had time on my hands.”

“Yes,” Bellan said, “a god's gift is on you and you play with it. You are a charioteer, but rusty. Like a good wheel, you will need much oiling before you are ready. But still, a good wheel. Now I will let you try my blacks, and see if they like you.”

They had brought them already. They were amazing in the sun, unreal, three animals carved from a single jet, highly polished to a silver gleam, with rubies set in their nostrils. They stood quite still, but there was nothing quiet in them. They were waiting, tensed and dangerous.

“Introduce our friend to them, Bellan,” Raspar said.

“With your pardon, I'd rather he introduced himself.”

Darak shrugged. He went forward, steady but not slow. A ripple ran through them. All three heads tossed almost simultaneously. Darak laughed softly. He was seduced already. He did not slip around to right or left, but walked on toward the middle of the three. The horse lip drew back, and the other two snarled also. Front hooves lifted a little way, unsure. Darak's hand slid, firm and caressing, across the satin muzzle. Stroking, he drew the dark head down, whispering. It was sensual, almost sexual, strangely beautiful. The horse nudged his shoulder. The other two on either side extended their faces to receive his attention.

Bellan chuckled.

“Very good, very good, my Darros.”

“One brain in three bodies,” Darak said. “Is that how they take the track?”

“Try them. They will go with you now. Twice only mind. We shall need them again, and they must not be tired. Besides, we have much to discuss together.”

The groom put them between the shafts, arranged their harness. Darak was in the chariot, impatient to begin. The blacks quivered, vibrant. The groom ran out and shut the gate. The reins flickered and drew straight.

The first time had been flight, but this was fire. Black fire leaping through oil. The horses stretched forward straining to catch the very shadows they had cast behind them on the previous lap. Darak stretched forward also. Too fast now to see clearly, only the curve, the impetus, orgasmic, unstoppable, making the world a frozen thing, transfixed around this core of speed. I felt I must run with them, to be still was blasphemy.

“Enough! Stop, you Sigkoan dog!” Bellan roared out.

The chariot flared, simmered, slackened. The horses trotted back around the turn to us.

“Did I not say two times, no more?”

Darak grinned.

“They and I forgot.”

“They and you must learn to remember.” But Bellan too was smiling.

Darak bowed, left the chariot, and, taking the light rugs the groom had brought, slipped them over each horse himself. They nuzzled him.

Ellak seemed surprised. He had not heard his leader take smilingly the orders and insults of any man before. Perhaps he had been expecting a fight; he looked bewildered, but his attention was distracted by a pretty girl coming out with cooled wine for us.

“There is much you will need to learn,” Bellan said, “and the black ones also. We must work on that. You know a little of the Sagare. By the gracious foresight of my master, you will know more of it very soon.” He nodded at the track. “Earth, air, fire, and water. A race of joy and fear and hate. But before that. Your archer.” He glanced at Maggur, at Ellak, who had drawn off a little with the wine girl. “These men will be too heavy. The team do not need to love the archer as they do the driver, but they must be able to suffer him.”