"My daughter sought out his advice on my recommendation. She has charge of halter-breaking the young foals, and gentling some of the lighter horses to saddle," Elkin replied, that grin tugging at the corners of his mouth and trying to escape again. "I have no sons, you see. . . ."
"Ah." Jegrai nodded. "But a good daughter is worth any number of bad sons."
"In truth. I have never noted the lack of sons, except . . ." Venn contrived to look mournful. "A man knows, Khene—he would feel happier going to his rest, knowing that there was a strong fighter to protect his little filly foals, his sweet little mares—"
"Father!" the girl protested, blushing fit to match Agroda.
"I speak only of horses, do I not? But also—knowing that there will be others to carry on his work—grandchildren, Khene, a man would like to see his grandchildren—and the traders are not so like to try to cheat a man, a strong, tall man, a man with a sword at his side—eh?"
"Indeed, I have often seen it to be the case," Jegrai replied as neutrally as he could. "Although I must say that any trader who chose to bargain with my own mother Aravay would be lucky to come out with a whole skin."
The girl gave her father an "I told you so" glare.
"Well, the long and the short of it is, Khene, it seems that my daughter has halter-broke a stranger young colt that ever I had seen before—"
"Father!"
"—and your warrior and my girl here seem to have conceived a liking for each other."
They both blushed, and the grin escaped from Venn Elkin's control.
"I'm all for the match—but the young man says he must ask permission of his Khene."
"Well that he has. I'm sure you are aware that there will be problems," Jegrai replied. He leaned forward in his chair, and fixed the horsebreeder and his daughter with as serious a stare as he could manage. "Our gods are not yours, our way of life is not yours, nor our language."
"But I'll learn—" both Agroda and Briya burst out simultaneously.
Jegrai nodded. "That is what I wished to hear," he said, sitting back a little and crossing his legs. "Look, the both of you young ones—this will be no easy thing. You do not go to a wedding as you go to a light love. You must both be willing to change at least some things. Near every moment of your lives will be one of compromise. Yours, too, good sir," he said, looking over to Elkin, who also nodded. "You realize that by having one of my people in your household, you will be bringing change into your life, I trust?"
"I'd like to think I'm not too old to change, a bit," the horsebreeder said quietly. "Hladyr bless, if I can learn to train a colt to neck and knee, I expect I can learn to like meat spiced to burning and a son-in-law who spends half his nights sleeping out under stars! Aye, and a daughter out there with him!"
Jegrai exchanged a wry look with him—and was relieved by it. The man was under no illusions about what had been going on these warm starlit nights. And evidently hadn't been worried about it, so long as it wasn't rape. That took one burden off Jegrai's mind, assuming that all Vale folk were of the same customs as the horsebreeder. Clan women slept where they wished until they wed, though if one were bearing it were wise to have a name-father for the child. Teo had hinted that the Vale folk were something similarly minded, but Jegrai had wondered, and worried.
Even the Vredai had not always been so cavalier about beddings and bearings, despite the old teachings of "cherish the children." But they had changed. They had to change. Too many children had died for the Vredai to put overmuch stock in who fathered whom. Now a child was precious of itself, and welcome no matter its origins.
"One other thing," Jegrai said, still quite seriously. "Agroda's loyalties and duties lie chiefly with me and Vredai. If I call him to war, he must obey me. Can you abide this, Briya? I will have no broken hearts that I can prevent; I would incur no resentments because of prior vows. But we have had to fight in the past, and though I do not care to think of it at this moment, we are like to do so in the future. And we will need every hand that can raise a sword to do so."
"If I were a flatlander down in Ancas, my husband could be hauled off to some fool war whenever his duke felt like a bit of excitement," Briya said in a high, breathy voice, raising her chin proudly. "At least I know who my Agroda be fighting for, and what, and that you won't be doing it as a game, like. I can abide it. Tell you truth, Khene, m'Da taught me staff 'n bow. Need came to it, I might be right there with him."
"And your children—should they choose Clan life over life in walls, could you abide that as well? For you must pledge to offer them that choice."
"Agroda told me. I won't pledge to like it—but I've not tried it either." She smiled, and Jegrai saw why Agroda looked ready to fall over his own feet whenever he gazed at her. She was utterly enchanting when she smiled, like a beam of sunlight given woman-form. "So by the time they come of age to choose, it may be me that's running about in tents, and them thinking their mam is a fool and a wild thing."
"Well spoken, lady." Jegrai gave her the bow of full respect he'd have given his mother. "I believe you have all thought this out, and I see no reason why this should not be the first of many matings between Clan and Vale." He looked out over the fertile little valley they were calling home—and realized, as he truly saw the "settled" look to the encampment, that the Vredai were, indeed, coming to think of it as their home, and not just another stopping-place. There were a full dozen of the great, anchored tents they called eyerts under construction, and they were not being anchored to wagons, but being given foundation-walls of stone from the river. Jegrai himself had never seen such a thing; only the Shaman had memories of such settlements.
They want to remain, to make a place of permanence. They'll fight for this place, he thought somberly. They'll fight anyone and anything that tries to drive them from it. That was why the rebels didn't simply ride off. This place was home, and they didn't want to leave.
"I do think," he said, half to himself, "I do truly think we are here to stay."
* * *
"Did you mean that?" Teo asked quietly, much later, after the evening meal, in the relative privacy of Jegrai's tent. "That you're here to stay?"
"If I had not meant it," Jegrai said, face very somber, "I would not have said it. This place has come to be home to us; I can see it every time I look about the camp. Indeed, it looks less like a 'camp' with each sunrise. You cannot tell me it has escaped your eyes, Teo."
Teo shrugged. It hadn't escaped his notice; the temporary jury-rigs of a people on the move were vanishing all over the camp. "Well, I thought things were getting to look awfully settled. Making that stone-lined pool for washing, for one; and there's talk of a steam-tent—and those big eyerts—and I overheard one of the old women talking about a kind of wooden eyert, and there were an awful lot of people listening to her with speculative looks in their eyes."
"Have you, in your tales of your gods, a place of afterlife, of reward?" Jegrai asked, an odd sort of longing in his eyes.
Teo nodded. "I think everyone does."
"I know not what your tales speak of—but ours speak of a place much like this valley you have given us. Much good grazing, sheltered from the storm yet open to the winds, shaded by trees, sweet water in abundance—how could anyone wish to leave paradise?" Jegrai sighed and rested his chin on his tucked-up knees, his arms wrapped about his legs. "And I ask myself: how long will we be allowed to keep this paradise?"
"But—" Teo protested, "Felaras won't—"
"It is not Felaras I fear, my friend, my very good friend. It is . . . what we left behind us." Jegrai's face took on a kind of grim determination. "Listen to me—some of this we have told your Master, but I wish you to hear all of it. I think it is time, and more than time, for all the truth to lie between us. I tell you: once the Vredai were twice, three times the number we are now—"
"But—"
Jegrai motioned him to silence with a wave of his hand, then changed his position to that of sitting cross-legged on his cus
hion, looking for all the world like Gortan about to relate a tale. "Hear me: farther than any of your breed has ever been, off to the east so far that few even of my folk have ever seen it, there is a vast, bitter salt sea."
"We've heard of it," Teo agreed.
"So. On the shores of that sea there dwelt a people who called themselves the Suno. In their tongue—in their tongue that means 'Masters'; and not as your good Felaras means it. Their mastery is that of man over dog, for that is how they see all not born to their ranks. Indeed, their word for 'outlander' means 'dog.'"
"Not auspicious."
Jegrai nodded. "So. They became great, they spread themselves upon the land—and then they encountered the steppes and the Vreja-a-traiden. That is my people, the riders of the steppes—that is our name for ourselves, and it means only that. They could not endure us. Yet they could not conquer us, for we had no cities to destroy. They could not enslave us, for we killed our masters if we got weapon in hand, or killed ourselves rather than face enslavement. So instead they sought to destroy us from within, first by seducing some of us with pleasures, then by setting those they had seduced against other Clans. Always they spread the poison of praise among the sweetmeats, saying that this one or that one should be Khekhene by right, that all other should bow to him. Many were those who heard and many who heeded, save only my father, who heard, and saw the blade of the knife beneath the platter of sugared dainties. And who saw that the old ways of raiding and counter-raiding, of counting coup, were being replaced by blood shed in anger, and blood-feud called."
Teo raised one eyebrow. "Jegrai, my friend, my good friend, you see very clearly for one so young."
Jegrai grimaced, and shook his head. "I can see very clearly when the truth is shoved into my nose, my friend Teo. It was Northwind and my father who saw this—it was Northwind who foresaw this even before there was proof, and whether it was a vision from the Wind Lords or simply that he saw the Suno luring the eastern Clans to them, saw how rage was replacing reason among them, I do not know nor care."
"I take it that Northwind and your father tried to turn the tide that was running against them?"
"Aye. It was my father who tried to keep this from happening, with words of warning and water-pledges with as many Khenes as would give them. And all for nothing."
Jegrai's eyes went dark and brooding, and full of such sorrow that Teo felt his own throat close in sympathy.
"Vredai was the one game-piece, the single straw, the one support that kept the whole from falling into chaos. While the Khene of Vredai was pledged friend to all the other Khenes, the Suno plans came to nothing. But my father was the keypiece to Vredai's place as peacemaker. And with him gone—"
"Surely he saw his danger," Teo protested, "if he was as farseeing as you say."
"Oh, ay," Jegrai answered bitterly. "But the Khene must prove he is warrior from time to time; my father no less than any other. He led the warriors on a common, ordinary raid, a raid for cattle against the Suno—a bit of defiance, if you will. And in the old way—lightly armed and armored. But the Suno were warned and many and well armed, and my father died."
Jegrai's eyes closed for a moment, and to Teo's profound amazement, when he opened them again, Teo could see his lashes were wet. The sight killed the words he was going to speak on his tongue. He had never suspected Jegrai of that depth of emotion.
But Jegrai's voice showed no more emotion than before.
"My father had not been able to gain water-pledges Clan to Clan, as Master Felaras and I swore, the kind that would have bound all others against raising their hands to us. He could only get pledges Khene to Khene. And when he died, all such pledges died with him."
"And you?" Teo asked, finally able to speak. "Why didn't you lead the Vredai out of harm's way when he died?"
Jegrai shook his head, and looked down at his hands. "I was only sixteen summers, Teo—there was much dissension over whether I was fit to be Khene. By the time all were satisfied, Khene Sen and the Talchai were ready, backed by the Suno, who had told him that to be Khekhene he must destroy the voice of rebellion—the voice of Vredai. And I made the poor decision to speak out against Sen and his ambitions in the Khaltan, the great meeting of all the Clans. He—Sen—saw what I was, but also what I might become. The voice, not only of Vredai, but of the Vreja-a-traiden."
His voice grew cold with anger as he looked back up and focused his eyes on some distant point beyond Teo's shoulder. "They fell upon us, not warband upon warband, but warband upon the encampment itself. That was where and when we lost the most of our folk—that one raid. It was a slaughter such as had never been in all the long history of Vredai. Once, in the dark time of long ago when men were little better than beasts, there were Clan feuds of that kind, but sensible folk soon saw the folly of such things. But Khene Sen declared such a blood-feud on some trivial cause, and the other Khenes either upheld him or said nothing out of fear."
Jegrai's eyes closed in silent agony for a moment. "It was murder; there is no other word for it. With my own eyes I watched Sen trample children under the hooves of his horse. Oh, Wind Lords, my people . . . my people . . ."
Teo had never seen such emotional pain on anyone's face before, and finally had to look away.
Jegrai swallowed his grief, quieted his face, and continued. "I think the Suno counseled him in this. I think they reckoned that it would destroy the soul of my Clan, and leave me shattered and unable to lead."
"They should have known better," Teo said quietly. "That kind of atrocity only rouses people."
"Truth, it did no such thing as frighten us." Jegrai's face hardened. "Not the Vredai. We, who would not abide slavery under Suno hands, we who would not lick their feet and grovel as Sen did—how should we be made to fear? Never! Not though we perished to the last infant! I ordered the folk to pack what they could and scatter the herds. I ordered Northwind and Aravay to lead them into the West. Then I, and a handful of my best, young, and unwedded warriors went to work a delaying action on Talchai. We stole the Clan-altar, the shrine to the Wind Lords and the luck of the Clan—and when they pursued, we dropped it in their path, so that the hooves of their own horses shattered it and trampled their luck into the dust."
Jegrai's expression was at once proud and bleak. "We did not expect to survive that action, friend Teo. We expected to die at any point in that raid. Our aim was to buy time for what was left of Vredai with our blood. Yet—somehow—we lived."
He shook his head a little. "I still do not know why. But Sen and the Talchai could not—dared not—allow us to escape. Not after a handful of us effectively defeated them. This we knew. When we met with the rest of Vredai, we fled westward, hoping to perhaps to outrun them, or to simply find some place to make a stand. We did not expect to find paradise—less did we expect to find friends."
He raised his head a little higher and stared soberly into Teo's eyes. "Have I miscalled you, Teo? Or have I called you aright? Are you of the Order desirous of real friendship, of brotherhood with us?"
Teo found it very hard to speak. "I—we—Jegrai, we want to be your friends, truly we do—but what are you asking of your friends?"
A faded smile flickered at the corners of Jegrai's mouth. "I find I have lost the will to die, Teo. More than this, I find that I should like very much to—to be the strong warrior-lord your Order thought me when we first arrived. I come to this land of yours, and I find that, reduced as Vredai is, we are still an army compared to the armed strength here. If I stretched out my arm, and if I did not need to think about Talchai behind us, I could have such power, here."
Teo's breath caught in his throat; Jegrai looked at his paralyzed expression, and laughed dryly.
"Teo, Teo, I do not want to be anyone's master, Teo. I would very much like to be Khene of many people, of much land—but not at the cost of making war, and not out of conquest. I do not want slaves, victims—only friends, allies. I have a talent for leading; I wish to use it for more than just leading the Vreda
i. Is that foolishness, or vainglory?"
"N-no. I don't think so," Teo said doubtfully. "I wouldn't want a position like that, but . . . I'd rather you than the Yazkirn princes I've seen."
Jegrai nodded slowly. "That is rather what I had hoped. But—there are the Talchai. I do not think they will come this year, but come they will, and this time numbered enough to crush Vredai into the dust and destroy the very name of Running Horse for all time—"
Teo found it impossible to look away from his eyes. Like black fire . . .
"—unless I have the help of the Order. Your help in full, Teo. This means the sky-fire, and any other trick you have hidden away. Nothing less will serve. Because when the Talchai come, they shall come in the thousands, and they shall come with the intent of burning all before them. But they shall come at us in ignorance, expecting a handful of frightened, defeated, exhausted refugees—and they shall come knowing they do not have the Wind Lords with them, for their luck, their Clan-soul, is gone. If they are met even once with your lightning—it is they who shall crumble."
"Then what?" Teo whispered.
"Then . . . I should like to call what is left of the Clans together. They would make me Khekhene; I think there is no doubt of that. With my warriors and your sky-fire, we could drive the Suno into their walls, and make them fear to set foot beyond them ever again. It might even be we could destroy them, but I do not wish to waste lives—their own poisons will destroy them."
"And?"
Jegrai lowered his voice. "And when they are no more a threat, Teo, I pledge you now, on the life I gave to the Wind Lords, that I will turn my attentions to the enemies of your people. So that none will ever dare to raise hands against one wearing the Order's badges ever again."
Teo tried to get his mouth to work, but it was several long moments before he could get any sound to come out. "I—I can't speak for the Order, Jegrai. I can't even speak for the Master. I can't guess what she'd say—but you want me to ask her for you, don't you?"
Jegrai nodded. "I have assumed from the first that you were her eyes and ears here. And I knew that she knew. I think you are more than just her creature, now—I think you have come to know us. I hope you have come to appreciate us."
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