The Foretelling

by Alice Hoffman

  Only my own fortune was there.

  In the Heart of

  IN THE HEART OF A WARRIOR QUEEN there can be no confusion. She must at all times know who she is and what is expected of her.

  She is the fearless, the brave, the murderous if need be.

  When my mother's scouts told her that men from the east were moving toward our city, my mother prepared herself for battle. Sometimes the battle comes to you, but there are other times when you must go to battle before it can arrive at your door and destroy you where you live.

  This time I would not ride with the prophecy women, but with the warriors. It was what I had always wanted, and yet I felt myself shiver, as though it was already winter. I felt something in my heart, a heaviness, a stone.

  We rode for a single day, that's how close these people had come to us. We arrived before the sun came up, so many of us that the dust that arose behind our horses could be seen all the way from our city, or so the old women who'd been left behind later said. Perhaps the men from the east had heard of us and wanted wives; perhaps they'd only blundered into our land. It didn't matter what they intended or what they wanted. Our people wanted things, too.

  Firstly, we wanted not to lose our own people. We were warriors, but there were many ways to fight a battle. We knew tactics men had not yet learned or even imagined. Our people waited on the steppe while Cybelle and her beekeeping women went forward in the dark. They smelled so sweet as they entered the village, no one from the eastern people awoke from their dreams. The enemy slept heavily, lulled by a buzzing sound. Carefully, Cybelle and her women used wooden funnels to let the bees enter beneath the tent flaps. No one noticed the bees at first; they slept on long enough for Cybelle and the women to come back to us, like shadows over the rocks, across the steppe, the log bee houses they carried now empty.

  All at once, our enemies ran from their tents, shouting, confused, stung by our good neighbors. They had panicked, as warriors never should. The instant they did, we went forward. I could hear my mother's war cry, and I rode along with the women my age, Io's scythe at my knee. I was wearing the bear claws, pulled up to my elbows, so that my wrists were protected by Usha's claws and my hands were free.

  Even my own people looked at me differently in this battle, as though I were a sister to the bear. I aimed my arrows and felled two of the enemy. I saw the way they went down into the dust out of the corner of my eye, yet I kept on seeing it. An arm lifted into the air, a thud on the earth, a cry that rose and then disappeared like snow in a fire.

  But I was not proud of what I'd done. Usha's spirit must have entered me, and only I knew she was not a warrior, not truly a bear at all, but a horse. I hated what I saw before me and I felt sickened. I could not abide the hot scent of blood. In the midst of battle, I felt as though I were seeing what was happening, rather than being part of it, seeing for the very first time what had been around me all my life. Pain and grief and sorrow and loss. Brutality. What had happened to me? Was I under a spell? Weakened by the amulet of Usha's claws that should have made me stronger?

  One of our enemies tried to pull me from my mare, and I pushed him off, nothing more. I could have used Io's scythe, I could have spilled his blood, chopped him in two, but instead I watched him run, and I felt something I shouldn't have.

  Pity. Mercy.

  Those burning things.

  Our people captured six of their men, killed many, and chased whoever was left to the borders of our land. It didn't matter if they sneaked back for their tents and belongings; they would not bother us for a very long time. They would dream of bees and of women who were half-horse, and they would stay where they belonged: away from us.

  The nights were colder, and it was cold as we rode home. I heard my sisters’ war cries of victory, but I was silent. Tonight would be the night of the festival. No one who hadn't killed three men would be allowed go. I had killed at least the two I'd seen go down, and surely some others, but when Asteria rode up beside me to ask how many, I said I hadn't killed any.

  I didn't want to go to the festival. I wasn't interested in knowing anything about men. I knew enough already. More than enough.

  I knew Melek.

  Then you'll have to stay home with the children. Asteria laughed. Even if you do think you're fierce as a bear.

  I washed the dust from my mare when we got home. There was the single drop of blood on her forehead. I fed Sky and let her drink from the stream and then I asked her for guidance. She was quiet and calm, and I took that to mean Do nothing. Say nothing. Not now.

  Io and I watched the women get ready. Our sisters bathed in the stream, then covered themselves with cinnabar and chalk. They combed their hair with honey. They wore bone jewelry, and the few who had beads wore them as well. Every girl who had recently become a woman and was at the festival for the first time was given more koumiss to drink than the others. The priestesses had their needles ready: Each girl, now turned a woman, was honored by a tattoo at the base of her neck, the blue line of our people.

  They let the men view the ritual bath. The fools were entranced by what they'd drank and what they'd smoked and what they saw. Did they not think that there were few men alive who would go on living after being allowed to witness such things? Did they think these women who'd fought so hard were about to become their wives? To cook their meals and sew their clothing and take them into their arms at night?

  Deborah was among the women at the stream, sitting by the fire as the others got ready. Those men would have never guessed that among all the women, Deborah had once been the most beautiful, even more so than my mother, her black hair reaching down to the ground. All the old women spoke of it: how no man could run when he saw her. How even on the battlefield they spoke to her as though she were the goddess who had taken human form.

  Deborah saw me with Io, watching our sisters become more and more beautiful. She saw the look on my face as I studied the fire. Deborah motioned to me to come to her. You can never deny a priestess anything, and I should have gone to her, but instead I grabbed Io's hand and ran away.

  You can't be afraid of the fire, Io teased me. What did you see there? A spirit? A demon?

  I didn't say that it was myself that I saw in that fire. I was there, in every blue flame, riding away, farther than I'd ever gone before, alone.

  Are you sorry you re not going? Io asked me later, when the sky was turning dark. We were in our tent, under our blanket, when the festival began, but we could hear them. There was drumming and what sounded like war cries. It was the mystery of the goddess that was being revealed, but I didn't want to see it.

  The men had already been taken to the priestesses and given a mixture of koumiss and hemp. By now they probably thought they were dreaming. They would not protest as they were dressed up like stags by the old women. Each man would wear the pelt of a stag, and a headdress with long horns. Their faces would be painted with ochre and yellow dust until they themselves wouldn't know who they were.

  Against my back, Io shivered.

  Will they kill them? she asked me.

  When they're done with them, most likely.

  Some men were set free, some were kept, like the smith we had among us. There were people who believed that the bear in the sky was made up of the skulls of seven smiths, killed by our grandmothers, but still watching over us. It was a cruel time, and we knew that; still, we had to go on, otherwise our people would disappear, like a drop of blood on the earth, vanishing into the yellow clay.

  We could hear the wild songs in our dreams. Our people were drinking mares’ milk and taking out their carved pipes to smoke hemp; they had covered their bodies with a paste made out of the red flowers that grew on the steppes. They were dreaming, too, only they were still awake. It was the trance state, for one and all. It was the way we had always done things. It was for the sake of our daughters-to-be.

  This was the way our people were made, daughters formed from battle and joy, not from sorrow, the way I had been.
As for the men, they thought they were in heaven, a deep heaven of dreams they had never imagined. Our people were upon them, not with weapons this time, but with their own bodies, covered with ochre and honey.

  My dreams were different. In my tent, I was dreaming of the black horse. I was running beside it, through the snow. I could feel my own breath, the billow of heat in the frozen air. I could hear the horse, his hooves, his breath. I reached him and grabbed his mane, then lifted myself up. There was a pounding in my head, the echo of horses’ hooves. Wait for me, brother, I said to the horse, but he was too fast and he threw me and in my dream I was falling.

  I awoke falling, startled, and in her sleep, Io held on to me. But it wasn't enough. My dream felt more real than my own tent. I went outside, into the cold morning. I could indeed see my breath in the air. It was so quiet, there weren't even any birds. I could smell last night's fires burning out and the odor of hemp. It looked as though a battle had been fought right here in our city. There were women sleeping outside, unprotected from the cold, still in the last grip of their trance. I saw two men, far on the steppe, wearing nothing, running like deer. The others I didn't want to see.

  I thought I saw my mother among the women who had been to the festival, but that was impossible. She already had her daughter, her Queen-to-be.

  But if I was to be the Queen, why was it that I wanted to be gone from this place? Why was I thinking of the grass that grew so tall, the hillock above Melek's city of tents?

  I took my horse and rode north. I rode for the sake of riding, to be my mare's sister, but there was something more in what I did. I knew that when I passed the place where Usha had been killed. Where her blood had seeped out, the ground was darker now, more black than red. I got down and walked a circle, begging for my sister-bear's protection. And then I saw something white gleaming. I bent down and there was a bear tooth. I held it in my hands, then got on my knees and thanked Usha for watching over me, the way the bear in the sky watches over all of our people.

  I took the leather strand that held Io's seashell from around my neck, then chiseled a small hole in the ridge of Usha's tooth with my knife and threaded the leather through. The tooth felt good around my neck, as though I had found the bear inside of Usha. Inside of me.

  I rode on. I wanted to take a look, nothing more. When I got to the bluff Melek's city was there, but it was abandoned. His people had already gone on, toward some higher ground where they could last the winter. I rode down into their city. I had nothing to fear from emptiness.

  I left my mare and went inside a tent. It smelled of food and smoke. Some cooking things had been left behind, and a stone anvil used by a smith. I went to another tent, then another. I felt I was knowing these people from standing in their homes. I was interested. But really, I was something else, too. I wanted to know what was beyond my own people. It was curiosity, that dangerous thing. It was something opening inside me.

  I knew I had found Melek's tent because he had left something behind. Maybe he knew me better than I'd ventured to guess; maybe he knew I would come here. Propped up near the place where a fire had once burned, there was an image of a bear carved in stone. It was a flat stone, no bigger than my hand, carefully wrought. When I looked closely I saw that the bear had my face, and that the face was beautiful.

  I rode home; I wanted to be back before dark. Our people were packing up, dismantling their tents. It would soon be time to go to the winter-lands, everyone knew that. I turned my mare to trot toward my tent; I hoped no one would notice me. But all at once every dog in our city began to bark. They were turned to me, barking, as if they could see what no human could see: that the Angel of Death rode beside me.

  The Queen must have heard those dogs. That night she called me to her tent. I was shaking at the thought of appearing before my mother.

  Alina and Penthe sat close together as I came inside, my head lowered out of respect. Penthe asked me to eat with them, some of the mares’ meat from the night festival. I said I had already eaten with Io, which was not true.

  I was too nervous to eat in front of the Queen.

  I sat down across from them, my head still bowed.

  The Queen wore a coat made of horsehide, fastened with brass buckles. She looked beautiful. I could hardly believe she was indeed my mother.

  We're hoping you will soon have a sister, the Queen said.

  I looked up and saw there were lines of ochre paint on her face.

  I have a sister, I said. Io.

  Penthe reached across and touched my hand, grateful.

  A blood sister, my Queen said.

  Now I understood that my mother had indeed been at the festival. The only reason for her to be with a man was to bring forth a second daughter, a Queen. I did not please her or satisfy her. She wanted a different daughter, a different Queen. Now that it was out in the open the sorrow floated between us. I was Rain to her and nothing more. Someone she wanted to forget.

  I lifted my head so I could look at my mother, and as I expected she looked away. So I bowed my head again.

  By this time you should have killed enough men to become a woman, my mother told me. We will see how brave your sister is.

  My sister Io is quite brave, I said in a quiet voice. For this there was no argument.

  Thank you, Penthe said to me, acknowledging only what was true.

  We will see who this blood sister of yours is when she arrives, my mother said.

  I looked at the Queen and this time she didn't look away. I should have been angry, furious, hurt. I should have said, Why is it you can only see sorrow when you see me when I am so much more! Why do you only see rain?

  Instead I said what any of our people would have said to our Queen.

  Whatever you wish. I am your servant in this and all things.

  Soon enough our people knew that my mother would have another daughter, and that once she arrived I would no longer be the Queen-to-be. Now when I walked through our city no one bothered to stop speaking in my honor. I heard some girls laughing at me. When I went to practice with the warriors, Asteria took me aside. She who had endless courage, who had killed so many of our enemy there wasn't room on her quiver to make another red mark, looked down her nose at me. She no longer pretended to like me.

  If you had wanted to be an archer you should have made that decision when the time came, Asteria said. It's too late for you to be a true warrior.

  I had become nothing, not even something-to-be. I was no longer allowed to go to battle with the elite, but instead I was left to trail behind with the girls who were too young or too weak, once again helping the priestesses who cared for the dead.

  Deborah called me to her, and I had no choice but to go. We were nearly ready for the move to higher ground. The horses knew this and were restless. I went to the place where the priestesses lived. There were ravens pecking at the ground, looking for answers to their questions.

  I have something for you, Deborah said.

  Why? I'm worthless.

  Maybe that's what you want to believe.

  I raised my eyes, angry.

  Why would I want to believe such a thing? You know what my Queen's decision is. I'm like drops of water in her eyes.

  If she doesn't see who you are, she will lose everything. Don't do the same. Make your own fortune.

  The priestess offered me a drink of honey and mares’ milk and something else, something to protect me, an herb she had never even given to her own daughter. I took the horn that held the mixture and drank it all. Now when I looked into the fire I could see the priestess herself. I thought she was beside me, but no, when I looked into the fire she was there.

  She held up her hands and the black horse that was galloping toward her stopped.

  It's right in front of you, I said.

  We both knew I was seeing Deborah's death. She was so old and weak that when a raven came to perch on her knee the priestess no longer had the strength to wave it away. I pulled one of its feathers and i
t flew off, cawing. When Deborah turned to me I saw there was a cloud of white over her eyes. She could see what was inside a person, but she could no longer see the outside. I could see the breath of the black horse when she breathed out.

  The high priestess honored me by whispering to me a great secret, meant for my ears alone.

  She sees only rain when she looks at you, but even a Queen can be wrong. You are the prophecy. You're what's to come.

  All that falling leaf season I helped get the horses ready for the journey to the winterlands. I liked the work I did, caring for the horses, keeping them calm when the smith fit their bridles. Because I had inherited my great-grandmother's talent, I could think the way they did. I knew when they were thirsty. When they were hungry, I knew to bring them hay. Io helped me. I could feel her fear lessening. One day I saw her atop the roan horse that had been given to her as a gift by our Queen, chosen by Penthe because of its color, a red sister for red-haired Io.

  The horse looked startled at first, but Io wrapped her hands in its mane and whispered something to it and the mare began to trot. Then, all at once, the roan mare began to run.

  I leapt onto the horse I was grooming, Asteria's big yellow mare, and chased after Io. The trees were dropping their needles on the ground. The wind was bitter. I caught up with my sister at last, and used my leather belt to catch the roan horse around its neck, slow it, then stop it.

  Now I saw that Io was laughing. Her face was flushed.

  This is what I've been missing! Why didn't you tell me it felt like flying in the wind?

  We rode back together and I felt lucky to have a sister. Maybe I would feel lucky yet again when my new sister was born. I was free now, really. But even if I was no longer the Queen-to-be I still felt the burden of something else. The prophecy.