White Mare's Daughter (22 page)

This starlit night, Danu felt her presence, the warmth of
her smile. Or perhaps it was only the light of the great fire, the
harvest-fire, built of chaff and of dry shocks from the fields, and blessed
with its share of fruits and grains from the harvest.

He beat the earth with his feet. He leaped high above it, as
high as the sky. He danced the circle-dance with these strangers who were never
his kin, who from day to day and moon-phase to moon-phase had become familiar.
Tonight he was one of them.

The circle spun, sunwise, goddess-wise, setting the seal on
the harvest. With a roar of drums it broke, the parts of it scattering, only to
bind together into a new whole. In this one women too took part, young women
naked but for the Lady’s garment, the skirt of woven cords that concealed
nothing; that flaunted their beauty for any eye to see.

The night was chill beyond the circle, an autumn chill with
the bite of winter in it. But here by the fire, in the whirl of the dance, it
was as warm as summer.

Danu found himself dancing face to face with one he knew
very well, Catin with her long hair unbound and her breasts gleaming. Her skirt
was the color of blood, bright scarlet, cords whirling as she spun. Her teeth
flashed white. She was laughing, somber Catin whose smiles were rare and
precious things.

She linked hands behind his neck and bore him with her,
dancing the sacred circle, round and round the fire. Somewhere he lost his
tunic—so had they all, all the men, and trousers, too, cast aside, forgotten.

They unwound in a skein then, the spiral dance, the dance
that wrought the world. Out and then in, in and then out, and fire in the heart
of it, roaring up to heaven.

oOo

Danu fell out of it onto yielding softness. Later he would
see that it was a haystack, one of many that ringed the dancing-field. It
seemed, just then, made solely for him to rest in, and Catin laughing on top of
him, wet wriggling body, dizzying scent of woman. She mounted him as he lay there,
with urgency that had not a little of the Lady in it.

He was glad to worship the Lady so, and in such a semblance.
Catin was strong tonight, stronger than mortal woman, and in her strength she
made him, for a little while, more than mortal man.

But even gods could tire. Twice again the Lady roused him,
but the third time, even her power was not enough. Catin sighed and shook her
head and smiled, and kissed him on the lips, and went away.

Danu lay for a while, dreaming of sleep. But the hay was
rough on his bare skin, itched and stung the tender parts of him. He staggered
up.

The cistern for watering cattle stood not too far away,
almost farther than he wanted to walk, and across a cold stretch of night air,
too. Nonetheless he did it, and bathed in the icy water, which woke him rather
too well. He did not know where his clothes had gone.

It did not matter. The great fire had died down. A few
shadowy figures danced still. The rest had sunk to the beaten grass, or found
haystacks of their own, the better to worship the Lady. Catin was in one of
them, no doubt, with a stronger man than he.

He was not going to think about that, or let it trouble him.
Walking as swiftly as aches and weariness would bear, warming himself with
speed, he sought, not the Mother’s house, but the autumn pasture.

The herdsmen’s hut was warm. They had had their own festival
here, and given their own gifts to the Lady. They greeted Danu without
surprise. Nati left after a little while to keep watch over the herd.

Danu wrapped himself in a fleece and followed. Sleep was
close, but not so close yet.

The colt was asleep, curled up in a huddle of similarly
sleeping goats. He did not wake for Danu’s coming, though his ear flicked:
aware perhaps, but unwary.

Danu thought of making his bed in the midst of them, colt
and goats both, but the herdsmen’s hut tempted him. He chose a place between, a
mound of grass untenanted by goats. Wrapped in the fleece, with the stars to
bless his head, he slept as he had not slept since this year began. No dreams
tormented him. His sleep was peace, there on the hillside, and he woke to the
grey light of dawn, woke smiling, though it was a while before he knew why.

oOo

Danu came to the Mother’s house as she lifted the sunrise
song from the summit of the temple. He had seen her there as he walked into the
city, a dark still shape on the roofpeak.

Catin was not in the room that, sometimes, she shared with
Danu. He had not truly expected that she would be. The stab of disappointment
surprised him, and made him ashamed.

He folded the fleece that had kept him warm all night, and
laid it by the bed. Later he would take it back to its proper place. He dressed
in his own clothing, combed and braided his hair, and made himself fit to face
the day.

Today the elders would shut themselves in the temple for a
rite more secret and more holy than that in which he had shared yesterday. They
would set the seal on the season and bless the altar in the inner temple, and
make it all secure for the coming of winter.

He had his own securing to do, the finding and strengthening
of a place for the colt. The goats would go to the winter pasture, but that was
far away, farther than he could easily walk from the city. He should be close
to it. He did not know exactly why, only that he must.

It must be a good place, a warm place, but with room about
it for a young thing to run. He would have to supply it with fodder as people
did with cattle too greatly valued to trust to the mercy of snow and cold,
wolves and hunger. It would be good, he thought, to wheedle a goat or two out
of Nati and Lati, to keep the horse company.

It would take all the time he had, maybe, from now till the
snow flew, to find and ready the place. He had one or two in mind.

Not the Lady’s grove. Danu had decided that from the
beginning. The colt would grow stunted if he returned there. He should have sky
unwalled in trees, and space to stretch his long legs.

Danu walked the city’s rim, round the outermost circle of
houses, where the trees ended and open fields began. The barns there were full,
the byres waiting for the cattle.

On the southward side, not far from the bend of the river,
someone had built and then abandoned a house of wood and wattle over fitted
stone. There were two parts to it, the open stone space below and two rooms
above, walled and floored in wood. The roof was thatch and somewhat rotted. The
walls were sturdy, and the door was only a little broken.

Better yet, whoever had built the house had raised a pen
behind, for goats perhaps, or a cow; and from that a long meadow ran down to
the river. It would, with time and a little effort, be a comfortable place to
winter in, the horse below and he above. And Catin, maybe. If she wished.

He had not thought yet what she would say to his leaving the
Mother’s house. Still the horse was his charge, and he could not keep it in the
city’s heart. Either he went away to the winter pasture and returned seldom if
at all, or he claimed this place and kept the horse in it, and himself
perforce, since someone must tend the beast and see that he was fed.

He approached the house with respect, but with no
expectation that anyone would be living in it. Its mother had died, Danu had
heard in the city, and her daughters found homes elsewhere. Her son had lived
there for a while, till a woman from Woodsedge chose him to raise her children
for her.

The spirit-knot was still on the door, worn and frayed with
weather: protecting the house and its memories, and putting dark things to
flight. Danu brushed it with his fingers, taking to himself somewhat of its
blessing as he passed beneath the lintel.

It was as he had been told, a broad open space of a fine
size to keep a horse in; and the ceiling surprisingly high overhead. It was
musty with disuse, but no evil lay on it, nor had anything fouled it.

A ladder led up the far wall to an opening in the ceiling.
Danu climbed into a room that might have been pleasant once, and could be
again. It was lower than the room below, but still high enough to stand erect,
with a stone hearth that bore a memory of fire. It was divided in two, inner
room and outer, the inner smaller, with a platform in it, and the remnants of a
bed.

Danu nodded to himself. It would do. The more so for that,
in the inner room, he found a chest, and in it an array of pots for cooking and
for storing wine and food, and other oddments that would serve well for the
keeping of a house. It was better than he had expected, by far.

He walked back lightly to the Mother’s house, traversing the
city’s circles that had become familiar since summer’s beginning; even the
trees that defined and shaped them, and made it difficult at first to
understand how the city was made. People called to him, and waved or smiled
when he passed.

He paused to watch a weaver at her loom; to glimpse the
potters in a lesser temple, making vessels for the Lady’s rites. He surprised
himself with contentment. Three Birds this was not, but he had a place here.

He came round rather indirectly to the Mother’s house, past
the temple and the grove that were the city’s heart. As he drew near it he
heard an odd thing. It sounded like the murmuring of a crowd of people.

In truth, but for the weaver and the potters, he had seen
few enough in the streets. He had thought little of it. The day after the
harvest had ended, after a festival that had kept everyone awake until dawn, of
course there would be fewer people about than usual.

But not, perhaps, so few.

The murmur drew closer. Danu halted by the temple, craning
to hear. He was aware of the walls rising above him, the peaked gable with its
carved faces: Lady of the Trees with her crown of leaves, Lady of the Deer with
a fawn in her arms. The door was shut, as it should be; the elders would have
finished their rite and gone away, and left the temple to its solitude.

Someone was coming down the eastward way. The murmur
followed.

Danu’s ear caught a sound that made his eyes widen. Hooves
on packed earth, round hollow hooves. Had the colt come in from the winter
pasture by himself?

That was not his dun colt, this creature walking toward the
Lady’s temple. It was a horse most certainly, but larger, taller, older,
dappled silver and white, like the moon on new snow. On its back, half-fallen
over its neck, rode a stranger. He could see no face, only garments of worn and
dusty leather, and a plait of hair the color of rich red earth.

So it was true. One could ride a horse, if the horse were
large enough.

This horse had a look to it, a light in the dark eye, a
sheen on it that made the people of Larchwood murmur in awe. This was the
Lady’s creature. There could be no doubt of it.

It halted before the temple—as it happened, full in front of
Danu, who lacked will to remove himself. The rider sighed and slid. With no
thought at all, he reached and caught the body as it fell, sinking under the
weight of it, until his knees stiffened.

It was lighter than he had expected. Not a man’s body at
all, though quite as tall as one.

He stood with the woman in his arms and not the least
conception of what to do next. The horse nudged his shoulder with its nose,
snorted and pawed.

It was imperious, that one. He understood it well enough.
Move!
it bade him.
Look after this my servant.

He could think of nothing better to do than to carry the
stranger-woman to the Mother’s house. The horse followed, and the people
behind.

They had fallen silent, perhaps in horror at his
presumption. But he had to do something. He had to hope that this was enough;
that it would satisfy the Lady.

The horse could not follow him into the Mother’s house, but
it hovered near the door. Danu laid the stranger in the gathering-room, on the
heap of rugs that made a nest to lie on in the evenings.

It was a woman indeed, though thin and wiry like a man. Her
face was all bladed planes: sharp cheekbones, sharp curved nose, sharp chin.
Her breasts were small, all but invisible under her leather coat, and her hips
narrow like a boy’s.

She was too peculiar to be ugly, but he could hardly call
her beautiful. Interesting, that was the word.

He debated undressing her, searching for wounds, for some
cause for her unconsciousness, but he could not bring himself to touch her
clothing. That was clean enough, to be sure—and somewhat to his surprise; she
was no more redolent than anyone should be who had been travelling as far as
she must have done. Still he would not take on himself the burden of tending
her, not without the Mother’s word.

He grimaced. What had he done after all but take it on
himself, by bringing her here? This was not his house. He had no authority to
bring a stranger to it.

He looked up without surprise into the Mother’s face, and
Catin’s behind, in a crowd of elders and their daughters. They must have been
close on his heels.

He kept his head up, though he spoke humbly. “Mother.
Honored aunts.”

The Mother inclined her head to him. The elders were less
courteous, more intent on the stranger.

“This is another of the savages,” one said. She sounded
angry. “How did she pass the towns and cities, if she came from the wood? How
did she escape the watchers? We should have been warned!”

“Maybe she came from somewhere else,” said one of the
daughters.

The elders hissed at her. “Where else could she have come
from?” demanded the one who had spoken first. “A horse brought her. There are
no horses anywhere but in the east.”

“The Lady brought her.” Danu was astonished to hear himself
speak, still humbly but with a firmness that he could never have mustered while
his wits were about him. “She belongs to the Lady.”