White Mare's Daughter (61 page)

The Mother and her heir had no great beauty, but the heir’s
daughters were each lovelier than the last. In that house, over a feast of
roast mutton and sweet wine, Agni discovered the joys and alarms of a man too
eagerly sought after. He had heard of men quarrelling over a woman, but women
did not, that he knew of, quarrel over a man. Or if they did, they kept it
among themselves; not open and rather excessively lively, with the object of
their attentions caught in the middle.

It was scandalous. Agni would gladly have left them to it,
but that would have offended the Mother.

Nor was he a coward, to run away from a pack of women. He
gritted his teeth and endured, even when they stroked and petted him, tugged
his hair, glared at sisters who had found a choicer part of him to torment.

Worse, his friends were laughing at him. They had their own
flocks of admirers, eager beauties who had never heard of either shyness or
circumspection.

Rahim in particular reveled in it, and mocked Agni for a fool,
to be so discomfited. “You could marry them all,” he said, “and never want for
warm nights again.”

Agni’s eyes rolled. “I want wives, not ravening she-wolves.”

“Indulge them,” said Rahim. “Cherish them. Sing praises to
the gods who set such delights in the world.”

Agni’s response was more a yelp than a word, as the
contention for his favors swelled into open battle. They did not strike and
claw at one another. They made him their weapon instead, tugged and stroked,
clutched and pulled.

Just as he tensed to shake free, the Mother spoke a word.

All his tormentors stopped at once. Their expressions were
sullen. They were far from happy, but they were obedient. They settled for
clinging close and glaring at one another across his body. He wondered if he
would be forced to choose one or more of them, or if they would insist that he
take them all.

oOo

As seemed to be the custom in this country, the feast
ended before a feast among the tribes would have well begun. In an exchange of
fierce glares, the eldest of the daughters rose and held out her hand to Agni.
It was her right, her manner said, and she did not expect to be refused.

She was very beautiful. Agni was not unwilling, but he was
wary, casting a doubtful eye on the rest of the daughters. They scowled and
sulked, but none contested the right of the eldest to claim the prize.

Agni wondered what would happen if he pointed to another of
the daughters—if he would break some law of these people, or give unpardonable
offense.

They were all beautiful. All, he was sure, were skilled in
pleasing a man. It seemed to be a matter of pride among them.

With a faint sigh he yielded to their custom, took the hand
that he was offered and went where she led. He happened to notice as he left
that Patir had taken the hand of another dark-eyed beauty, but Rahim sat alone,
and Gauan too far gone in wine to care. He was rather surprised at Rahim. Women
did indeed love his yellow hair.

Then Agni was gone, taken away into an inner room, and his
mind had space for little else but dark eyes and clever hands and breasts as
ripe and sweet as the fruits with which she teased him, tempting him, slipping
them into her own mouth just as he began to taste them. Her lips were stained
red; her breath was fragrant. Her kisses were rich with sweetness.

They made an art of bedplay here, as men among the tribes
made an art of war. Agni could learn to crave it, if he allowed himself to slip
so far.

As of course he would not do. He was only half a fool.

Agni woke abruptly. It was dark but for the flicker of a
lamp. He was alone. He lay for a while confused, remembering slowly where he
was, and beginning to wonder what had become of the woman with the clever hands
and the berry-sweetened kisses.

Then he heard it again, what must have roused him: an outcry
without. Voices raised in anger or indignation. Women’s voices, and a man’s
rising above them, striving to drown them out.

Rahim. And words that were almost clear. That sounded almost
like, “She was asking for it. They’re all asking for it. Gods, make her stop!”
And a woman’s voice either keening or cursing, Agni could not tell which.

He found them in one of the outer rooms: a crowd of staring,
babbling people, and Rahim in the midst of it, and one of the Mother’s
daughters. She was cursing indeed, railing at Rahim, while two of her sisters
held her back from leaping on him.

Agni caught sight of Tillu in the back of the gathering,
snared him with a fierce glance and brought him thrusting through the press.
“Tell me,” Agni said.

Tillu’s eyes were glittering; he looked as if he had been
diving into the wine. But Agni smelled none of it on him. “It’s the girl,” he
said in a tone so neutral it was flat—as if he were taking excessive care to be
a voice and not a man. “She says he forced her.”

“I did not!” Rahim cried; for Tillu’s words had sounded loud
in sudden silence. “All the women here are willing. Every one.”

“Then why,” Agni asked, “does she say that you forced her?”

Rahim shrugged broadly. As he turned to catch the light,
Agni saw the rich purple of a bruise about his eye, and a split and bleeding
lip. “I heard her in here,” he said, “rummaging about, making more noise than
she needed to. What was that for, if not to see if someone was listening?”

“She said that she had come to look for a blanket, because
one of her sisters stole her own,” Tillu said. “And he crept up on her from
behind and wouldn’t let her go.”

“Women struggle,” Rahim said. “It’s their way. When they say
no, they want you to hear yes.”

“Then he forced her,” said Tillu. “She fought, which she
seems to think is a terrible thing, and he laughed and went on thrusting
himself at her.”

“Is that true?” Agni asked Rahim. His voice sounded dim and
far away.

Rahim did not seem to hear anything strange. “She was
wriggling and writhing fit to drive a man mad. They’re hot-blooded, these
western women. She even struck me—see? With her fist.”

“She was fighting you,” Agni said, cold and still. “And you
forced her. I was cast out of the tribe on suspicion of just such a thing. What
makes you think that I shouldn’t do the same to you?”

Even yet Rahim was barely dismayed. “That was a woman of the
Red Deer, with a father and brothers and an ancient fool of a husband. This one
has no men about her at all. And if she did—what would it matter? She’s no
woman of the tribes. She’s as wanton as they all are here.” He paused. “Maybe
this is it. Maybe this is the trap we’ve been dreading. She’s looking for a
war, and finding it in me.”

He was much too delighted with the thought. Agni said to
him, “Then you don’t deny that she resisted you?”

“She was teasing,” Rahim said. “How could she be unwilling?
She was naked—she is naked. Look at her! She’s thrusting herself at you even
while she curses me. They all do that, don’t they? All the women. They all want
you.”

Agni did not see that she was thrusting herself at anyone.
She was trying, as best he could see, to escape her sisters’ hands and fling
herself on Rahim. From the look in her eye, she meant to kill him.

“Tillu,” Agni said, “speak to her for me. Ask her if it is
true. If this man raped her.”

Her eyes burned as Tillu spoke. She nodded vehemently, with
such a snap that her teeth clicked together. She spat a mouthful of words.

“She says,” said Tillu, “that she fought him from beginning
to end. He only laughed at her. She wants—” He paused to draw a breath. “She
wants him killed.”

Agni held himself very still, made himself speak very
steadily. “I thought these people knew nothing of bloodshed.”

Tillu spoke as steadily as Agni had, with an overlay of
gentleness that Agni found most interesting. The girl answered with calm all
the more striking after the heat of her anger. “When a dog is rabid or a bull
runs mad, we grant it the Lady’s mercy. We kill it. When a man forces himself
on a woman, there is no worse offense, and no greater madness. Him too we grant
the Lady’s mercy.”

At last Rahim seemed to understand the gravity of what he
had done. He blanched, who had been ruddy with indignation. “She
asked
for it!”

“She says not,” Agni said. “Your face is testimony to the truth.
These people do not strike blows—and yet this one struck to draw blood.”

“And how willing was that woman of the Red Deer?”

Agni looked into Rahim’s face. This had been his friend. Was
still, beneath it all. And yet, looking at him, Agni saw the wreck of this
thing that Agni had begun. To take all this country, to be given its wealth
without need to shed blood for it—to hold and defend it, and make it
strong—Agni had seen it in dreams since he came out of the wood.

He tried to find words to make Rahim understand. “If she had
been a woman of the tribe, would you have done such a thing? Would you have
dared?”

“She is not of the tribe,” Rahim said. “Do you understand?
These are not people. They’re nothing to do with us.”

“They are everything to do with us,” Agni said. “We’re
outcast. Has it struck you even yet, what that means? We can’t go back to the
White Horse. We’ll be killed if we try. We have to make our own tribe, and
gather our own people.”

“So we have done,” said Rahim. “We brought them with us: men
of all the tribes that we passed. Those are ours. These are conquered people.
They’re ours to do with as we will.”

“There are,” Agni said, “uncounted numbers of them. I count
three hundred of us.”

“And none of them can do more than bruise a man’s face.”

Agni shook his head. “You’ll never think like a king.”

“I think like a man of the tribes,” Rahim said.

Agni stood in impasse. Out of the cold place in his center
he said, “Patir. Take this man and secure him. Tillu: if you will, find the
Mother. She’s not in the house or she’d have heard this yowling.”

They both did his bidding, and quickly. Even Rahim.

The others, the Mother’s daughters, had gone silent, staring
at Agni. He did not know why. His face could not be as terrible as that.

It must be his quiet, and the anger that blew cold in him.
If they could sense it, they might walk shy of it.

Even the daughter who had been outraged was sitting in
silence. She had a bruised look, a darkness about the eyes, that he had never
seen before. Certainly not in the woman of the Red Deer, who had importuned him
until he gave way.

In war, men took women. That was the way of it. But even
Rahim had not called this war. War was a hot thing, a madness of the blood.
This was cold. It was folly, and none the less grim for that Rahim had not
meant to err as terribly as he had.

The Mother came at last—from the temple, Tillu said, where
she had gone in response to a dream.

“Better if she had stayed,” Agni said, “if this was what she
dreamed of.”

She nodded when she understood his words: heavily, with her
eyes on her daughter.

The girl had drawn into a knot. There was blood where she
had been sitting, bright flecks of it. She rocked and shivered.

“Dear gods,” Agni said. “Tillu. Ask the Mother. Was this
girl a virgin?” It took rather a while for the Mother to understand. When she
did, she shook her head, eyes wide as if she had never heard of such a thing.

“She’s not,” Tillu said. “She says no woman has pain
of—that. They see to it when the girls are young.”

“Then,” said Agni, “she had best look to her daughter. She’s
hurt, I think.”

“Sweet Lady,” the Mother said; and more that was too swift
for Tillu to render into Agni’s language. He managed the heart of it: “She is
with child. If this has harmed the baby—the one who harmed it will pay the
price. The price, she says—the price is his life.”

“Is that not already forfeit under your law?” Agni asked
her.

“There might have been a lesser mercy,” the Mother said.
“But if she loses the child, there is none for him but the Lady’s own.”

Her voice was calm. She would not yield in this.

If Agni compelled her to yield, what would come of it? She
had no warriors, no weapons, no knowledge of fighting. She might curse him and
all that he did, but he had his own gods, younger and stronger than her Lady.

Those gods would have it be simple. His people were his
people. These were other. They had no honor, nor did his own honor touch them.
He was free with them to do whatever he pleased.

But he had been raised to be a king. A king looked after the
people over whom he found himself. That was the first lesson he had learned
from his father.

He needed another mind, other eyes. He needed keener wits
than he had, just now. “Tillu,” he said, “I need you to be my messenger one
last time. Find Taditi. Bring her quickly.”

Tillu glanced at the Mother. She sat silent beside her
daughter, holding her, stroking her sweat-dampened hair.

There were no words that Agni could say that would move her.
Tillu sighed, shook his head, and consented once more to do Agni’s bidding.

oOo

Taditi appeared almost as soon as Agni had summoned her.
“No magic,” she said in the face of his surprise. “The story’s out. Where have
you put Rahim?”

“In a room here,” Agni answered, “with Patir to keep him
there.”

“That wasn’t badly done,” she said. She brushed past him to
kneel beside the Mother.

The Mother took her in in one long glance; seemed to see a
spirit like her own; bent her head and sighed, and spread hands over her
daughter’s body.

“No,” said Taditi as if the Mother could understand. “This
is not well done at all.”

“Is she—” Agni began.

“Yes,” said Taditi. “She’s losing it. Are you going to stand
and watch, or are you going to do something useful?”