White Mare's Daughter (93 page)

Sarama had little fear of them. The women with her, still
new to battle, she did not trust completely; not yet. But they would do what
they could.

They fell on the camp as the enemy had tried to fall on the
city, in a headlong charge.

It did not resist. The defenders drew back, would not
strike. There was nothing to fight.

By the time Sarama realized what was happening, they were
deep in the camp and the defenders had closed in behind them. She berated
herself for a fool, for a blazing and arrogant idiot.

Just as she wheeled the Mare about and opened her mouth to
call the rest together, a familiar voice said, “Sarama! What are you doing
here?”

For an instant she was not surprised at all. It was very
much the sort of thing that Tilia would say.

Tilia
.

Sarama stared into that of all faces, standing in front of
her in the midst of the enemy’s camp. And not as a prisoner, either. There were
others behind her: elders of Three Birds, Mothers of the towns nearby, and the
Mother of Three Birds herself, as serene as ever.

“What are you doing here?” Sarama demanded of them all.

Tilia answered, as Sarama had expected. “Somebody had to do
something about the camp,” she said.

“But you were safe in the city.”

“We wanted your brother to think so.” Tilia shook her head.
“That man. You’d think a woman was as weak as a baby, the way he carries on.”

Sarama’s thoughts exactly, when she had taken it into her
head to capture the camp.

She sat mute on the Mare’s back. Slowly the rest of it came
clear. The people standing about, tribesmen and veiled women, with no look in
them of defeat, but none of victory, either. The men were armed. None made a
move to threaten the women.

They did not believe it. That was the root of their quiet.
They could not credit the truth, that they had been conquered by a handful of
women, and only a few of those even carried a knife, let alone bow or spear.

Sarama could well imagine how it had gone. The Mother and
the rest had walked serenely in, stared down the defenders, and informed the
camp that it was become a stronghold of the Lady’s people.

The Mother had done much the same when Agni came to Three
Birds. Sarama wondered if the birds had come this time, too, to strike people
mute with wonder.

Maybe Agni should have let the Mother face the whole army
herself, instead of resorting to battle. It would have cost him all his pride,
but it might have succeeded.

No, Sarama thought. The gods of war would not have allowed
it. But here, where were only women and the young and the wounded, the Lady’s
voice could be more clearly heard.

“Come,” said the Mother.

She was speaking to Sarama. Taditi followed because she
chose. The others, Sarama sent to the camp’s edges, to hold it if the army
should come back.

The camp was quiet. Unearthly quiet, now that Sarama stopped
to notice. People stood about, but no one spoke. They watched the Mother as the
rabbit watches the hawk.

They were terrified of her. Goddess knew what tales people
had told of her, what powers ascribed to her. That she had come here so calmly,
so utterly without fear, must only have proved that the stories were true.

The center, the king-place, belonged to the White Horse. It
was piercing, the familiarity of that tent and the tents about it. They had
stood in every camp that she remembered, in just this order, each according to
the rank and standing of the men who owned it.

There were only women here. None uncovered her face, though
there was no man to see. They stood outside of tents or peered through the
flaps: wary eyes, furtive postures, trained from childhood to creep about in
shadows. These bold barefaced women, many of them bare-breasted, would be
shocking, even appalling.

The Mother stopped in front of the king’s tent. “I should
like to go in,” she said.

Sarama blinked, startled. “You haven’t—” She broke off. “Why
are you asking me?”

“This was yours once,” the Mother said.

“No,” said Sarama. “Never. It’s the king’s tent. I belong to
the Mare.”

The Mother smiled at the Mare and stroked the sleek grey
neck. But she spoke to Sarama. “You never lived here?”

“Only when I was in camp,” Sarama said, “and never for
longer than I could help.”

“So,” said the Mother. “Give me leave to go in.”

“Can I prevent you?”

“Yes,” the Mother said.

Sarama sighed a little. For days—months—she could convince
herself that she understood the people whom she had chosen for her own. Then
one of them said something, did something, that was utterly incomprehensible;
and she knew that she was an outlander. Would always be an outlander. Would
never be anything else.

The thought passed like a gust of chill wind. Sarama lifted
the tentflap and held it aside. “Be welcome in my father’s tent,” she said.
Which was courtesy of the tribes, and pleasing to the Mother: she smiled as she
bent her head and entered.

oOo

The moment went by with blinding swiftness, and yet in
memory it was crawlingly slow. The Mother smiling, stooping. The blade—grey
flint, gleaming as it caught a shaft of sun, plunging down. The hand that
gripped the blade, slender fingers, very white, heavy with rings, and massive
golden armlet. So much weight of gold drove the knife into the lowered neck,
drove it deep, and half clove it asunder.

All in the space between two breaths, between two beats of
the heart. The Mother’s body fell, lifeless long before it struck the ground.

Nobody else saw, at first. Only Sarama who was closest. The
Mother had vanished into the dimness of the tent.

Sarama stood stone-still. All her vaunt of being a warrior,
all her swiftness and her strength, and she was powerless to move.

A shadow crossed her: Tilia, walking blindly in the Mother’s
wake. Sarama had moved before she thought, wrapped arms about that solid body
and flung it reeling back.

Taditi grunted as Tilia careened into her, but braced and
held her ground. She was not hopelessly shocked as Sarama had been. Her wits
were about her, her eyes sharp. She steadied Tilia, who was sputtering with
anger, and shook her till she fell silent.

Sarama slipped her knife from its sheath, her lovely new
copper knife with its blade so wonderfully keen, and crouched, every sense
alert. No sound came from within the tent. She drew a sudden breath and
feinted.

The pale hand flicked out again. Sarama caught it, striking
swift as a snake, and twisted it. The flint knife dropped. Sarama hauled the
murderous creature into the light.

It was a woman, of course: a wan pale slip of a thing with
eyes as colorless as water. She snarled at Sarama and spat words that Sarama
did not trouble herself to listen to. She had no doubt that they were curses.

“Be quiet,” she said. And when the woman would not obey, she
slapped that bone-white face.

The cursing died to a hiss. Sarama shook her till that too
stopped.

“Rudira,” Taditi said. Her voice was flat.

Sarama’s eyes widened a fraction. This was the woman who had
so bewitched Agni, the woman who had betrayed him because she wanted to be a
king’s wife?

She had a certain beauty, Sarama supposed, if one’s taste
ran to milk and water. For all that she had killed the Mother of Three Birds
and wrought the gods knew what in consequence, she had no more power in her
than is in a snake that slithers in the grass. Just like a snake, she had
struck out of hiding.

And the Mother was dead, with no warning, no foreseeing. Not
even a premonition.

Tilia had won free of Taditi’s grip, or been let go. She
plucked Rudira out of Sarama’s hands, nor did Sarama try overly hard to keep
her. If Tilia had killed her, Sarama would not have wept.

But Tilia did no such thing. Clearly Rudira expected to die:
she lifted her chin, bared her white throat. Tilia ignored her; set her aside,
lifting her as easily as if she had been a child, and left her there, and knelt
at the Mother’s side, half in the light, half in the darkness of the tent.

Sarama held her breath. No new death fell out of the
shadows. There were people inside: Sarama could hear them breathing. None of
them moved to come out.

Nor did Rudira move to kill the daughter as she had killed
the mother. She stood rubbing the wrist that Sarama had gripped so hard,
whimpering a little as if it pained her. Sarama did not doubt that it did, nor
doubt at all that she whimpered as a clever child does, to melt its nurse’s
cold heart.

Sarama’s heart would never melt. Not for this one. She
turned her back on Rudira, contemptuously, and braved the shadows.

oOo

It was only dark for a little while. Then it was dim, the
dimness of a tent lit by lamps, odorous and close. Women’s world, Sarama used
to think when she was younger; but it was no world that she had ever submitted
to.

Nor would she now. “Yama-diti,” she said, clear and cold.
“Do you know what your son’s wife has done?”

Yama’s mother remained where she had been sitting, illumined
by a cluster of lamps that with a shock Sarama recognized. She had seen it in
the Mother’s house in Larchwood, seen and marveled at it, for its branches were
made of copper.

She must not be distracted. She focused her mind and set
herself to hear that Yama-diti would say.

It was not so much, but it was enough. “She thought she
defended us.”

“So she did,” Sarama said. “Straight into the bitterest
blood-feud of them all. That was the Mother of this city—the king of this
country. The one you see out there, kneeling by her: that is her heir, who is
now Mother. Who is wife to my brother. Who is king above the kings who are in
this land.”

Yama-diti heard her out in silence, in a stillness that made
her think of Mothers; but Mothers were serene. This was not serenity.

She was afraid, Sarama thought. That terrible old woman—all
her haughtiness was fear.

And yet fear could make a person deadly. Fear had killed the
Mother, and might well kill the rest of them before this day was ended.

Yama-diti spoke at last, in a dry cool voice. “So. It’s
true. He’s alive.”

“You hoped that he wouldn’t be?”

Yama-diti shrugged slightly. “It would be convenient if he
were dead. That’s his wife out there, is it? Wise of him to marry the king’s
daughter. Does he know where she is now—she and the baby in her belly?”

Sarama held herself still. Tilia had power enough in her to
turn aside a curse, and certainly to keep her baby safe. And yet Sarama’s back
prickled. Her hackles were up like a dog’s.

“You lose an advantage in this country,” she said. “Nobody
here doubts a woman’s ability to think. People will know who rules in this
army.”

“Then I won’t need to pretend, will I?”

“Except to your son.”

Yama-diti permitted herself a thin smile. “He serves his
purpose.”

“And when he no longer does? Will you kill him yourself, or
have someone do it for you?”

“I am sorry that my son’s wife was such a murderous fool,”
Yama-diti said, “but I am not another.”

“No,” said Sarama. “You think before you kill.”

“So do you,” said Yama-diti.

Sarama looked her full in the face. For a wonder, she
returned the stare. Sarama said, “I will advise my brother to kill you.”

“Why not do it now? I could commit any number of treacheries
before I come to him. Or he may die in battle.”

“Or both?” Sarama shook her head. “I don’t think so. He’ll
win. And he’ll want to be the one to judge you. You harmed him first, long
before you harmed any of us.”

“You’re a fool,” said Yama-diti.

“Maybe,” said Sarama.

Agni rode headlong into battle. It was not too great a
distance, but far enough; and Mitani was fresh, and had exhausted his patience.

Even amid the clamor of so great a battle, the thunder of
that charge overwhelmed the rest. Agni howled as he rode, howled like a wolf.

He did not care at all if he died. He cared that he should
die well—and that he should take Yama with him.

Poor wretch of a king Yama might be, but his men were loyal.
They were Agni’s blood kin, his brothers, young men who had grown up with him
in the tribe. But it was his tribe no longer, and they had turned their backs
on him. They had cast him out.

Bitterness drove him. It strengthened his spear-arm. It made
his long knife the more deadly.

Men fought him. He was barely aware of them, except that
they stood between himself and his prey.

Yama was in excellent flesh. The others had eaten well since
they came to this country, but they had still the look of men who had lived too
harsh for too long: a greyness to the skin, a haggardness in the face. But not
Yama. He had never lacked for anything.

An axe whirled in Agni’s face. He struck it aside with the
butt of his spear.

His arm rang with the blow and went briefly numb. He took no
notice.

He was wounded, maybe. There was a sensation like pain,
somewhere far away. It did not matter.

He broke through. His men, his yearbrother Patir, defended
his back. He stood in a circle empty of aught but Yama. It was a surprisingly
large circle, and the grass in it astonishingly green. It was only a little
trampled.

Yama regarded him without fear; with nothing more potent
than exasperation. “By the gods,” he said testily, “you don’t even have the
decency to be dead.”

“What, you didn’t know I was alive?”

Yama scowled. “There was supposed to be a king here. Not
you.”

“It was always said,” said Agni, “that I was born to be
king. Even your mother couldn’t keep me from it.”

“What does my mother have to—”

“Oh come,” said Agni. “Don’t play the fool. We all know who
tells you what to do and say and think.”