White Mare's Daughter (23 page)

“So she does,” said the Mother, forestalling the rush of
protests. She came to stand beside Danu, looking down at the woman. Her face
was calm, but her eyes were somber. “So this is the beginning of it,” she said.
“So soon. I had hoped . . .”

She stopped, shook her head. “No matter. Danu, Catin, see to
her. The rest of you, go. When the time comes, I’ll summon you.”

This Mother seldom wielded her authority. Danu might have
thought her weak, if he had not seen how well the city ran itself. Now he saw
the strength in her, the will to command, that she used so seldom; but its very
rarity made it stronger.

They all obeyed, even Catin who could be sullen and
resentful of any will but her own. For her Mother she would bow her head and
submit.

oOo

The two of them tended the stranger, undressed her and
bathed her and made a bed for her in an inner room. There was nothing to do
then but watch over her. Danu left Catin to it under the Mother’s eye and went
out past the clusters of silent people, to find the horse still standing by the
door. No one approached it, or tried.

“It attacks when we come near,” said a child who crouched in
a doorway down the street, nursing an impressive bruise.

Danu nodded. The horse eyed him. Its ears were back, a mean
look, like a dog that growled at an intruder. Horses did not growl, but they
could wrinkle their lips and bare big yellow teeth.

“Come,” Danu said, as if a horse could understand the speech
of the people. “Be at ease. She is well, but she would be better if you would
look after yourself.”

The horse’s ears flicked at the sound of his voice. He could
not tell if it understood him. He ventured a step closer.

The horse did not lunge at him. He ventured another. Its
ears flattened. He halted.

“I can,” he said, “find you a place to rest, water to drink,
grass and comfort. If you will permit me.”

The horse turned its head away from him and presented its
broad rump. It was, he noted rather wildly, larger than the colt. Very much
larger.

He backed away carefully. Some of the children were watching
him. He caught the eye of the eldest. “Water,” he said, “in a bucket, and all
the grass you can cut from the river-meadow. Can you fetch those for me?”

The girl’s eyes narrowed. She nodded. In a moment she had
the younger children running to do Danu’s bidding, and quickly, too.

Danu had them set the water—three pails of it, no less—in
the space between houses, and spread the cut grass beside it. The horse watched
with interest, though its ears flattened again if it caught anyone’s eye on it.

When the children had retreated, leaving the space
untenanted, it ventured forward warily. It sniffed the water, snorted, lipped
at it but did not drink. The grass met with great approval: it fell to
willingly, and hungrily too.

Danu watched it for a while. It wore a harness about the
head, like a finished version of the knotted rope that Catin had shown him to
use with the colt; and there was a fleece strapped to its back, a shaped thing,
with an arrangement of pouches and bags bound to or hanging over it. The horse
might be glad to be freed of that.

It glared at him when he came close, but did not threaten
him as it had before. The fresh-cut grass distracted it well. He moved in
boldly then, slipped off the headstall and the reins, found and unfastened the
knotted strap that held the fleece about the horse’s middle. The hair beneath
was dark and matted with sweat. He rubbed it carefully, then more strongly as
the horse forbore to object.

It was not so fierce a horse after all. The colt was
trickier, with his penchant for nipping when one least expected it. This one
was particular about its hindquarters, but loved to be rubbed and scratched
along its back and nape and under its belly.

In the course of those explorations he discovered a thing:
it was not an it but a she. It was made differently than the colt, such a
difference as made a female thing.

No wonder then that she was so imperious in her manners.
Danu bowed to her as to a Mother or a Mother’s heir. “Lady,” he said.

She ignored him, as a woman might. He left her to her dinner
and went to see if her rider had roused.

Sarama had been ill. It was winter, she remembered, and
she had fallen victim to a demon off the steppe, a small fiery demon that
filled her lungs with spite and made her cough, and vexed her sorely with
fever. Old Woman brewed potions for it, kept her warm when she shivered and
cooled her with snow when she burned, and nursed her till she was well again.

But if that was memory, and therefore distant, how could it
be happening again? Where were the cold stone walls and the wuther of wind in
the eaves?

Here were warmer walls, walls of wood, and sounds as of
voices from both near and far. The scents were all strange. No smoke pungent
with the dried dung of cattle and horses. No cold cleanness of snow. She did
not know what she smelled: some sweetness, some pungency, and one that was
familiar after all, the ripeness of a privy.

She opened her eyes. Wooden walls, yes, and carved beams
above her, so strange that for a while she could only stare. She was lying on
softness, covered in the prickly warmth of woven wool. The room was small but
well lit, with a window open to sunlight.

Before she thought, she was on her feet, clinging to the
windowledge, yearning toward the sky. Walls closed it in and branches tried to
bar it, but it was there, just out of reach.

A sound startled her. She wheeled.

The room was dim after the dazzle of sunlight. A shape stood
in it, a dark looming figure.

It was human. She heard it breathe. Heard it speak. A low
voice, a man’s, with a lilt at the end as if he asked a question.

She remembered then: the steppe, the journey, the wood; the
people in the wood, with their strange tongue; and after that a blur of walls
and faces, road and trees and river, and an urgency that had brought her to one
place, a place in which the goddess wished her to be.

This place. Unless she had wandered astray, or lost her way
in the fever.

The man spoke again. His words were no more comprehensible
than they had been before. She could see him clearly enough now as he entered
the shaft of sunlight. He was not of the same kin or kind as the forest people.
His hair was as dark as theirs, his skin only a little fairer, but he was
taller, as tall as she, and though broader far than Sarama, never as broad as
they. Nor was his face so heavy, his bones so thick. His eyes were large and
dark under level black brows, his nose blunt and straight, his mouth full,
unsmiling, framed in close-cut curly beard. He made her think of a young bull,
even to the slight lowering of his head as she stared, and the hunching of his
wide shoulders.

She was, she realized, as nearly naked as made no matter. To
reach the bed and the coverlet she must pass him—this stranger. This man. And
he made no move. He simply stood.

He must be the master here, or the master’s son. He was
dressed more richly than she could have imagined, in weavings of rich fabrics
and wonderful colors, red and blue and green and gold. There were bright stones
in his ears, and on his arm a wonder: a curve of sunlight given substance,
bright gleaming marvel. Could that, indeed, be the thing called gold?

She shut her eyes against the lure of it, and called her
wits to order. A prince, yes. A lord of these people—no women kings after all;
no gentle rulers. Only men, as always, as the men’s gods had ordained.

This prince, if such he was, was pitifully slow to seize the
advantage. A tribesman would have had her on the bed long before now, and been
doing his best to prove himself her master.

She glanced from side to side. The window was too small to
admit her body, even as slender as she was. The door was behind the man. There
was no other way to go, no weapon, no escape.

The man moved. She tensed, but he backed away from her. He
bent to the chest that stood beside the door, rummaged in it, grunted as if in
satisfaction. He pulled out something soft and finely woven in stripes the
color of summer leaves and of new cream. He held it out to her, bowing slightly
over it, a gesture that might have been—respect?

Maybe they knew Horse Goddess, too. When she did not take
the thing that he offered, he stepped closer, too quick to flee, and set it
firmly in her hands.

It was a garment, of course, long and loose. She put it on
rather defiantly. It fell to her ankles, which was well. Its sleeves were
longer than they should be: perhaps it had been made for a man, even for this
man. But it fit well enough.

She scowled at him lest he think that he had bought her with
the gift. She had covered herself, that was all.

He met her scowl with a bland look, turned and called over
his shoulder. Commanding his servants, she had no doubt; and in short order
they came running, dark-eyed young creatures of ambiguous sex, carrying plates
and bottles and bowls. They spread a feast on the lid of the chest, with many
glances at Sarama, but nothing that she would have reckoned an impertinence.

One of the last brought something that she was very glad of,
but that she could hardly use under the man’s unwavering stare: a chamberpot.
Yet again he seemed to understand, though she had spoken no word. He turned his
back and leaned on the doorframe, comfortably and thoroughly blocking it, but
unable at all to see what she did.

She relieved herself as best she could, as a prisoner might.
Even when she was done and had arranged her new gown again, the broad back did
not move. She regarded it for a while, then shrugged and investigated the cups
and platters.

She recognized very little of what they carried. Meat, yes.
Mutton, but roasted with herbs that gave it a green and pungent flavor, not
unpleasant but a little too odd for comfort. Fruit cut and mixed together and
drizzled with honey. Something cooked together, roots and greens as they
seemed. And bread whiter and finer than she had seen, whose people made flour
from the seeds of the wild grasses, but never flour as fine as this. The jar
with it was filled with something sweet and strong—mead, or wine mixed with
honey—but there was a jar of water, too, cold and sweet, and a jar of goat’s
milk.

If this was bribery, then she would take it, and pay such
price as she might. She had not eaten so since she left the steppe. She ate
carefully, wary as one should be after fasting, tasting only, and not gorging
lest she cast it up again.

The man had turned back while she ate, and stood still
leaning on the doorframe, watching her. He began to puzzle her. His stance was
pure young male, and he was not a weedy or a weak one either, but she could
find nothing dangerous in his expression.

If he had been a woman she would have said that he was
keeping her company, watching her in some concern, gratified that she ate and
drank so well and yet so sensibly. But how could a man be that simple, and
demand nothing of a woman whom he could so easily have seized and taken at his
will?

There was no desire in his eyes at all. When she had stood
in front of him with her breasts bare and nothing to cover her but a scrap of
loincloth, he had shown no sign of lusting after her then, either.

She began to grow angry. Was she that ugly to him? Did she
attract him so little?

That was folly. She should be glad. Unless of course he was
preparing her for another, some greater prince or king.

Yes, that was it. He was the errand-runner. When she was
done with her dinner, he would do as indeed he did: beckon her to follow.

She considered resistance. But the room was small and its
walls closing in. Even if she had to fight for it, she would welcome a broader
space.

He led her out into a larger room, and thence through a door
into sunlight. She reeled and fell against the first thing that would hold her
up: his warm and solid body. He caught her but did not do the rest of what a
man might do. He held her till her feet were steady under her. Then he let her
go.

There were people about. They did not crowd close or weigh
her down with stares, but they were watching, murmuring to one another,
offering commentary on the stranger. There were a good number of women among
them, and none crept or hid or bent her head lest a man think her haughty. They
strode about like men, with bold eyes and proud carriage. It was the men who
looked down when she tried to meet their stares, turned their faces and refused
to confront her.

Sorely baffled but beginning to wonder if there had been
some truth in the traveller’s tales after all, Sarama followed her guide,
guardian, jailer, whatever he was. He led her down and round by a way that was
like the arc of a circle defined by the patterning of trees and houses; then
inward to a place that was taller than any of the others about it, two tall
stories high, and made taller yet by the carved peak of its roof.

They did not go in, though the door was open. They went
round to a curving wall of stone, and through a gate into a circle of green.

There were more trees growing here, and flowers, ordered as
she had never seen them. Hands had set them here, not simply allowed them to
grow. They made a pattern of interwoven spirals, ringed on the outside with
trees. In the center grew a single slender white sapling, ghostly and
beautiful, bearing a crown of golden leaves. Under the tree sat a woman.

There were other women with her. Sarama perceived them and
dismissed them. This was the one whose attention mattered, this elderly woman
with her thickened body and her sagging breasts, whose face could never have
been beautiful. She sat as a king would sit in the center of his tribe, erect
and imperturbably calm.

A woman king. Sarama had not realized she was holding her
breath till it cried to be let out. After all, a king who was a woman. The
tales were true.