White Mare's Daughter (60 page)

“Don’t,” Patir muttered under his breath. “There’s the trap.
A net, a rope, all her brothers with knives . . .”

“I don’t think so,” Agni said, not taking his eyes from the
Mother’s face. For all the number of her daughters, she was not so very old.
Her hair was black and glossy, her skin unlined. She was, in her way, quite
beautiful.

As if she had taken the thought from his head, she said
through the greatly amused Tillu, “You are beautiful, man of the east, like the
red deer in autumn. Will you worship the Lady with me?”

Agni’s cheeks were afire, but he nodded. Patir growled,
barely to be heard. Agni reckoned that more jealousy than fear for Agni’s
safety. Rahim was openly envious.

The Mother’s smile lit the room. She rose and held out her
hand. Agni barely hesitated before he took it.

There was indeed a room beyond the rooms that Agni had
been shown, and one beyond that from which came the scents of roasting meat and
honey sweetness. This one to which the Mother led him appeared to be her own,
nearly filled with a great soft bed. Lamps were lit, hanging from the beams,
shedding a mellow light across the coverlet; for it was dusk without. Somehow,
while Agni was otherwise occupied, the sun had gone to his rest, and night had
fallen.

Tillu had rather pointedly not been invited to follow, nor
had he gone so far as to offer. The last Agni saw of him, he was grinning
broadly. He found all of this much too amusing for Agni’s peace of mind.

And here was Agni, and here was the woman, with but one
common word between them; and that word was
war
.

Words were little enough between a man and a woman. Rudira
had been used to chatter overmuch, though Agni had never ventured to say so.

There was nothing that this one could say, that he could
understand. All that she needed to convey, she did with glances and smiles, and
with her hands divesting him of his clothes before he could muster will to
object. He shivered though the room was warm, naked in front of this woman with
her wise, wise eyes.

She was small: her head came just to his breastbone. And yet
she must have outweighed him by a fair fraction. He, who was no small or narrow-shouldered
man, felt like a stripling beside her.

Her hands marveled at his skin, how milky white where coat
and trousers covered it, how smooth to the touch, even with its dusting of
red-golden hairs. The men she had had before, she let him know with gestures
and with glances, had been less tall but more massive, broad-shouldered,
deep-chested, and thickly furred with black hair.

He was lovely, her hands said, like a young stag. And such
hair; such eyes, golden as the amber in the torque that she had given him,
outlandish, wonderful.

No woman had worshipped him with her hands before. Kissing
and stroking, yes, but not this sheer delight in the touch and the feel of him.
She ran hands over his face, shook his hair out of its braid and buried her
fingers in it, and stroked his shoulders, his breast, his belly and loins and
thighs.

His manly organ ached with stiffness, and yet he made no
move toward her. She stroked him, kissed him and teased him with her tongue,
till he gasped and pulled away.

She laughed at that, not cruelly; warm rich laughter, as if
she understood him perfectly, and did not blame him, either.

He had never been laughed at so before. It made him angry,
and yet it made him eager. He reached boldly and found the fastenings of the
garment that she wore, and worked them free.

He had expected layer on layer, but under the long coat or
tunic she wore only a skirt woven of scarlet cords, wrapped about her buttocks
and her thighs but baring the thick curls below and the great dark-nippled
breasts above, as rich as this country she lived in, and as extravagant in that
richness. He had seen no infant in the house, nor heard one, and yet her
breasts were heavy with milk.

Her eyes invited him; her hand on her nipple pressed forth a
drop. With a kind of antic terror, he bent his head and sucked as a child
would, as he could just remember doing. Her milk was warm and faintly sweet.

He struggled not to gag on it. She did not try to hold him,
did not catch at him even when he scrambled backward away from her. He could
leave, her manner said, if he must. Or he could stay.

He was not a coward. This was not his country or his
language or his way of taking a woman. Maybe Patir had the right of it: maybe
he should simply set his knife to this woman’s throat, take her place and her
power, and show these people what a king could be.

Or maybe he would gather his courage and advance on her and
take her in his arms and kiss her till she gasped; and while she was catching
her breath, spread her thighs and take her standing, fierce as a stallion on a
mare in season. And like a mare in season, she opened to him willingly, took
him strong and took him deep. It was like a battle, strength against strength.

He must be stronger. This strength must yield to his. He
bore her backward onto the softness of the bed. She gave way, but willingly—too
willingly. She allowed him to be the stronger.

Just so had he tamed Mitani—and the way he did it would not
have sat well with many a horsetamer of the tribes. Agni might well have
indulged in a flash of anger, but rueful mirth overwhelmed it.

It was a fault he had, that he saw more than one side of
everything. That came from his mother’s people, Taditi liked to tell him. They
were all strange.

And here he lay in a billow of bed, with Earth Mother’s own
living flesh beneath him, and his body carrying on in perfect contentment while
his mind wandered afield. She was as apt to his bidding as a fine mare, and as
wanton as a mare in season. And every bit of it she did because she chose, and
not because he forced it on her.

She stroked him with light and teasing hands, clasping his
buttocks, driving him deeper, holding him tight as her body stiffened and
surged. And when she had touched the height of her pleasure, she slipped free
of him and smiled, stroked his hair, and went peacefully to sleep.

He lay beside her, as alone as if she had cast him out on
the steppe. His body quivered, taut still, unsatisfied. Furtively, shamefully,
he finished it. He spent himself with no little spite, in the mounded
coverlets. She never stirred.

But when he made to rise, her arm circled his middle, and
her eyes, wide awake and very much aware, smiled into his.

He could break free. She was not as strong as that, nor her
grip so tight. It was her smile that held him, and the levelness of her gaze.
She knew him as women always seemed to do: inside and out, heart and soul and
body.

But she did not know that part of him which reflected on
winning a kingdom. He could not see it anywhere in her eyes. That was a men’s
thing, a thing of Skyfather’s will and shaping. Earth Mother knew nothing of
it.

He knew then what he would do. It had been coming to him
since he saw this country, but now he was sure of it. His hand went to the
collar about his neck, the heavy golden thing, warm with the warmth of his
skin.

Her eyes followed his hand. They asked a question. He
nodded.

Her smile was blazing bright. She pulled him to her, covered
him with kisses. And while he was still gaping at her, taken aback by the force
of her gladness, she coaxed and teased and persuaded his member to come erect
again. Then she satisfied him as he had satisfied her, with exuberance that
left him gasping.

And that, he thought, was what it was to be a bought
creature. It might also be what it was to be a king, or the beginning of a
king.

oOo

In a country that did not know war but that knew trade
very well, there appeared to be no dishonor in prompt surrender. As early as
the morning after Agni came into that first town, women came bearing gifts of
gold and copper, fine pottery, fat cattle and sheep heavy with wool, rich
weavings, bright shells, stones, beads and baubles, all the wealth of this
fabulously wealthy country. With it they hoped to buy his goodwill, and to spare
themselves the edge of his spear.

He found them more than willing to feed and house his
people, to give them whatever they asked.

“Even women,” Rahim said in wonder. He had gone with the
women from a city not far away, to discover if they were indeed as willing as
they seemed to offer their hospitality. He came back with a mildly stunned look
about him.

“There’s no end to them,” he said, “and no limit. Women
everywhere—and all it needs is a glance. They have no fathers to forbid, no
brothers to defend them. They can do whatever they please. If they decide to take
a man right where he stands, then they do it, and no one finds it strange.”

They were on the road then, Agni and those closest to him,
riding to a city that was said to be greater than the others, the greatest in
that region. It too lay near the wood, but farther south, in a gentler and yet
more wooded country than that to which they had first come.

They traveled in a shifting escort of dark-eyed people, and
most of those women or girls. The boys hung back, shy and seeming somewhat
afraid.

If Agni ruled as king over them, they would learn to be bold
as boys should be. He tilted a brow at Rahim. “Are you still irked with me
because I won’t give you a war?”

“I still think that the men are getting restless,” Rahim
said, “and spoiling for a fight. But if they can have women instead, any women
they want—”

“They’ll grow soft,” Patir said, “and be fair prey for the
men we never see. We’re being fattened for the slaughter. Can’t you see it?”

“I don’t think so,” Agni said. “These people are innocents.
They’ll let us rule them if we refrain from killing them. Which in our minds
makes them cowards, but in theirs . . . who knows? I think they
know nothing of honor or dishonor. All they know is prosperity. Everything that
they do, they do to preserve that.”

“They’re weak,” Rahim said. “They’re soft. They’re delighted
beyond words by the sight of a man who’s a man.”

“What, are all theirs geldings?” Gauan lolled on his horse’s
back. He had a fondness for the wine of this country, too much of one perhaps.
Agni had not seen him other than sotted since they were given a whole ox-train
laden with jars in return for the safety of a city some days’ journey south and
west. “I’ll wager they cut the boys when they’re young, the way we geld colts,
and only keep the best for stud. We are the best they’ve ever seen.”

“They do love your yellow hair,” Taditi said.

She had appeared that morning mounted on one of the geldings
from the remounts’ herd, and riding him not too badly, either. “I want to see
these cities,” she had informed Agni. “I’m tired of skulking in your tent.”

Agni knew better than to take issue with her in front of his
people. She was veiled, at least, as a woman should be, and she wore a properly
modest robe, albeit with trousers and boots beneath.

She had ridden in silence, keeping well behind him, until
just now. He looked to find her close beside him, her eyes as bold as if she
had been a woman of this country, and in front of his men, too.

She dared him to reprimand her. He opened his mouth to do
just that, but shut it again.

Rahim seemed undismayed by her forwardness. “It’s not just
yellow hair that lures them. Red hair, too. Brown, even. Anything that isn’t
what they’ve looked at every day. We’re a new thing. We’re wonderful.”

“You are full of yourself,” she said.

He laughed. “I’m richer than I ever dreamed. Last night I
had myself a whole hand of women. How can I not be happy?”

“The gods bless us,” Agni said. “They’ve laid this country
in our hands. It’s their will that makes it so simple.”

“Earth Mother will have somewhat to say of that,” muttered
Patir. Taditi shot him a glance of wintry approval.

Agni wondered if he should feel beleaguered. It was
difficult, riding in the sunlight, in the cool of morning and knowing it would
be fiercely hot later. This green and settled country with its tilled fields
and its dark-eyed people was beginning to seem a little less strange. They came
out of their fields and villages to stare at the horsemen riding by, and once
or twice he understood a word of what they said to one another. They called a
horse a horse, as they called war by the name he knew.

Often they brought gifts, running to meet him on the road,
offering him whatever they had that was rich or unusual or beautiful. Flowers,
sometimes, woven in garlands, or a soft-fleeced lamb, or a platter of sweet
cakes. The young women stared at him boldly, the boys shyly: more boys and even
men as he rode on, or maybe he had learned to notice them. They effaced
themselves well in fields or among the houses, as women were supposed to do on
the steppe.

Not all or even many of the men who rode with him were as
wary as Patir. Most trusted in the gods and in these people’s ignorance of
aught but the word for war. This was the country of the blessed, given to them
as a gift. Why might gods not give gifts to men whom they loved?

Earth Mother might object, but she was only one, and she was
old. The gods were younger, stronger, nearer to the world of the living.

oOo

So assured, and basking in sunlight, Agni entered the
greatest of the cities that he had seen, a city of ten hundreds of people, or
so he was told. Its circles stretched wide across a shallow valley, watered by
a river and a blue bowl of lake. The high house in its center, which he knew
now for their goddess’ holy place, rose to thrice the height of a man, with a
high peaked roof and a painted gable.

Its Mother was old and growing feeble. Her heir was no child
herself, mother of many daughters. If they had been sons and she had been a
king’s wife, she would have been reckoned a great lady among the tribes.