The Mark of the Horse Lord

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  ‘And you were one that he could trust.’

  ‘Nobody found out that he was not there.’

  Phaedrus looked at Brys with fresh eyes, noticing the good straight look of him, and the stubborn mouth. ‘Sa, sa – it may be that I shall need someone to trust, one day . . . I will take Gallgoid’s charioteer after him.’

  ‘In spite of Gault the Strong?’ Brys said slowly.

  ‘In spite of Gault the Strong.’ Suddenly Phaedrus laughed. ‘If Gault had sent me Cuchulain himself this morning to be my armour-bearer and drive my team, I would have spat in Cuchulain’s eye, if I could not be coming at Gault to spit in his.’ Then as the slow smile broadened on Brys’s face, ‘Now leave that burnishing, and go and find me something to eat, for my belly’s cleaving to my back-bone.’

  The unpegged curtain of skins across the doorway had scarcely fallen behind Brys when voices sounded outside and the heavy folds were thrust back once more, and Conory, with Shân draped across his shoulders, strolled in. ‘A fine and fortunate day to you,’ he said pleasantly, and deposited on the low stool by the fire, a gaming board and a carved wooden box. ‘Since there’s no going out for the bridegroom until they summon him out to his marrying, it was in my mind that a game of Fox and Geese might serve to pass the time.’

  Phaedrus flung off the bed-rugs with a sudden violence, and sat up. ‘Conory, it’s madness! I can’t be going through with this marrying!’

  Conory had settled on to his heels, and taken up the gaming box to open it. He said very softly, ‘Midir, it is in my mind that you have no choice.’

  ‘She will know!’

  ‘Keep your voice down, you’ve a King’s Guard outside. Here – let you put that cloak round you and come to the fire.’

  ‘Fiends and Furies!’ Phaedrus swore, but he picked up the heavy saffron cloak that lay tumbled on the bedplace, and flung it round him over the light under-tunic which was all he had on, and came to squat beside the fire, facing Conory across the checkered board on which he had begun to set out the pieces of red amber and narwhal ivory. ‘She will know!’ he repeated desperately.

  ‘She will not. She was only ten – eleven summers old when it happened. A babe who would scarcely have begun her weapon training.’ (To Phaedrus, it still seemed strange that the women of the Northern tribes shared the training of the young warriors, becoming as used to the throw-spear as to the distaff; and unconsciously, he frowned.) ‘You have nothing to fear on that count. She will not know the balance of the blade.’

  Phaedrus had just drawn breath for one more furious protest, for, indeed, it seemed to him a horrible thing, not only on his own account but on Midir’s also, that he should take this She-Wolf’s daughter for his woman; but at that moment Brys returned, with a beer-jar in one hand and a bowl piled with cold pig-meat and barley bannock in the other, and the protest must be left unmade. Instead, while they ate together – Brys had brought more than enough for two – he turned to the questions he had longed to ask yesterday. And Conory answered him as best he could, while Shân, springing down from his shoulder, pounced on and played with and tormented a lump of pig-fat that he had tossed for her beside the fire, until she wearied of the game and stalked out, tail erect, in search of better hunting elsewhere.

  By the time they had finished eating, it was all told: the number of the dead, and how many women were among them, the success of the rising that had swept like heath fire through Earra-Ghyl, freeing the Dalriads of the dark bondage that had held them for seven years; the flight with Liadhan of the Earth Priests not killed in the fighting.

  ‘Now it will be for the women once again to make the Mysteries of the Mother, as they have always done,’ Conory said.

  ‘Those furies!’ Phaedrus gave a small shudder, thinking of the women with their knives and their rending claws, and Conory and himself fighting for life in the middle of them.

  Conory flicked a faint, warning glance towards Brys, who was standing by to take up the bowl and beer-jar. ‘Do you ever remember them like that before, save when a man intruded on the Women’s Mysteries? And any man who does that has himself to blame for the thing that happens to him, as any woman would have only herself to blame, who spied on the boys’ initiation ceremonies. Ach no, that night was Liadhan’s doing, and the dancing in the Fire Hall, and the flute-magic of the priests.

  When Brys had departed with the empty bowl, Phaedrus looking after him, with his mind full of the things that they had been talking of, found that his thoughts had slipped sideways for a moment, and he was discovering that the Princess Murna could not be more than a year older than Brys himself. For that one moment he was thinking of her as a person, wondering how it had been with her in the days since Liadhan had fled, and where she was held captive, and if she also had woken to a weight on her heart this morning – supposing that she had slept at all.

  Then Conory said, ‘Shall we begin? Amber plays first.’

  They played three games, and Conory won them all.

  ‘Since you have my kingdom,’ he said, when he had made the winning move for the third time, ‘it is only fair that I should have the games.’

  There was a laugh from the direction of the doorway and looking up, Phaedrus saw that several of the Companions had entered, and were standing just inside, watching the end of the game.

  Yesterday they had been no more than strange faces and chance-heard names, these men who had been boys with Midir. But now, after the wild ride down from the Place of Life that they had shared, and last night’s feasting that they had shared also, names and faces had begun to join together. Lean, freckled Loarne, and Diamid of the sombre eyes and devil’s-quirk eyebrows; Comgal and Domingart who were brothers and seldom apart; the little dark one, probably with Earthling blood in him, whom they called Baruch the Grass-Snake. And in a vague, tentative kind of way, they were beginning to take on a friendly look.

  ‘The day be fortunate to you,’ Diamid said, ‘and may all the ill luck of it have gone into the gaming board.’

  ‘Fox and Geese was never your game, my Lord Midir.’ That was Domingart, shaking his head regretfully as he surveyed the board before Conory began to gather up the pieces. ‘And still it would seem that it is not.’

  ‘I am seven years out of practice,’ Phaedrus returned. The excuse was unanswerable.

  Brys had come in behind them, and began taking many-coloured garments from the big carved chest against the far wall, gravely proud to be the King’s armour-bearer, so that Phaedrus thought if he had had a tail like a hound’s, it would have been lashing slowly from side to side behind him.

  Time to be moving, then. He flung off the saffron cloak and got to his feet and stood ready for them.

  When he was once again clad in the ritual dress of the Horse Lord, from the brogues on his feet to the great stallion head-dress that had been brought from the hut where the priests kept the sacred objects, he went out with the Companions, to the Horse Court beside the Court of the Footprint, where the horses stood ready for them, and they mounted and rode down into the great Forecourt.

  The Forecourt was already alive with men, and growing more so every moment, as others came in from all over Dun Monaidh. There were few women among them, for the Women’s Side were for the most part gathering in the same way to the Royal Court. A shout greeted Phaedrus, when he appeared with the Companions riding about him, and they were caught up in the general movement and swept across towards the gate gap which gave on to the Court of the Footprint and from there into the Citadel.

  ‘The King rides hunting!’

  Somebody raised the shout and suddenly it was running through the great gathering, taken up from end to end of the Dun.

  ‘The King rides hunting!’ And then, ‘Who rides with the King?’

  Conory and the Companions crashed out the answer: ‘We ride hunting with the King!’

  They were close before the inner gateway now, jostling and jostled; the ponies stamped and snorted, puffing clouds of steam from their nostril
s; the colours of cloaks and fringed riding rugs and the glint of bronze from brooch or bridle-bit were darkly brilliant in the grey light of the winter’s day that was already far past noon. ‘What quarry for the King’s hunting? What quarry for the King’s hunting?’

  For a moment there was no answer, and the crowd fell silent, watching the gate. Then from within that last inner circle of rock walling rose the low wailing of the Women’s Side, making the ritual lament for a maiden carried off from among them against her will. Phaedrus, on the red horse with the mealy mane, ignored Gault’s dark face among the nobles in the forefront of the crowd and glanced aside under his red brows, at Conory; saw that Conory looked amused and politely interested more than anything else, and could have hit him. There was a little stir among the waiting tribesmen, and then the dead thorn-bush that closed the inner gateway was dragged aside. He could glimpse movement within, and the glint of colours, and the Princess Murna came walking slowly through the gate, with the women of the Kindred behind her and on either side. She walked looking neither to right nor left, down through the Court of the Footprint and out into the wide Forecourt. Her head was held very high and the soft, springing hair, loosed from its braids and drawn forward over her shoulders, hung in thick falls of dove-gold down over the breast of her many-coloured gown. The last time Phaedrus saw her she had been wearing the silver Moon Diadem; now she was crowned only with a narrow head-band of crimson stuff, strung about with shining wires and hung with disks of gold and coral; but under it her face was covered by a mask of red mare’s-skin that gave her the look of something not belonging to the world of men, so that looking at her, Phaedrus felt the skin crawl and prickle at the back of his neck.

  ‘What quarry for the King’s hunting?’ the men shouted again, and the women flung back the answer:

  ‘A Royal quarry! A Royal quarry for the King’s hunting!’

  Down at the foot of the outer court, where the timbered gates stood open, two men had just flung a fringed riding rug across the back of a young black mare, which looked, as Phaedrus had thought when he first glanced down towards her past the Pillar Stone, to have been ridden already today. He had said as much to Conory, and Conory had smiled that gentle smile and said, ‘A sad thing it would be if the quarry should outrun the hunter.’

  The Princess was level with him now. She turned her head once in passing, and he caught the flicker of light behind the eye-slits of the mask. Then she passed on, the men parting to let her through, until she reached the gate and the black mare waiting there. She seemed to come to life then, and scooping up a great fold of her skirt, drew it through her belt and made the steed-leap as lightly as any boy.

  A strange high cry like a sea-bird’s floated back to them as she wheeled the mare towards the gate, and with a sharp jab of the horse-rod, urged from a stand into a canter.

  She was out through the gate; and under the chanting of the Sun Priests invoking Lugh of the Shining Spear, they heard the hoof-beats trippling down to the outer gap, then burst into the drumming rhythm of full gallop. Phaedrus saw in his mind’s eye that steep rocky track down to the marshes – and she was riding it as though it were a level practice field. His hand clenched on the horse-rod of green ash, and unconsciously he must have tightened his knees. The red stallion stirred and buckled forward under him, and instantly Conory’s finger flicked up, warningly, on his own bridle-rein. ‘Not yet.’

  There was a general laugh all about him. ‘See how eager he is! This will be a fine, fierce hunting!’

  The drum of hoof-beats was very faint now, almost lost. The chanting of the Sun Priests died on a last long, glowing note, and again the finger flicked on Conory’s bridle-rein. Phaedrus raised the small, bronze-bound hunting-horn that hung from the stallion’s pectoral strap, and putting it to his mouth, set the echoes flying; then while the notes still hung on the winter air, heeled the red horse from a stand to a canter in his turn. The Companions were close behind him, Conory as usual just to his right, as he bore down on the great gate. Behind him he heard cries of, ‘Good hunting!’ Gault’s bull-roar topping all the rest. ‘Good hunting to you, Midir of the Dalriads!’

  They were out through the gates and across the ditch causeway, the track dropping before them towards the moss. For a moment there was no sign of horse or rider. Then Conory pointed. ‘There she goes!’ And away northward, Phaedrus saw the flying figure, already dimming into the sear grey and tawny of the marshes.

  ‘She’s not going to be easy to follow, once the light begins to go.’

  They took the plummeting track at breakneck speed, down from the hill of Dun Monaidh, from the in-pastures where that year’s colts scattered, kicking up their heels as they drummed past, and out into the great emptiness of Mhoin Mhor.

  The Companions were stringing out like a skein of wild geese threading the winter sky. The red horse snorted and stretched out his neck, and the foam flew back from his muzzle to spatter against Phaedrus’s breast and thighs, the mealy silver of the mane flowed back across his bridle wrist as the land fled by beneath the pounding hooves. Excitement rose in them all; laughter and hunting cries began to break from the men behind him. He guessed that in the ordinary way of things the girl’s flight would have been only a pretence, like the wailing of the Women’s Side. But this was different; if he wished to catch the Princess Murna, then he would have to hunt her in good earnest; and pity twinged in him, not for her, the She-Wolf’s daughter, but for the weary mare she rode.

  The track was pulling up now, out of the great flats of Mhoin Mhor, and the quarry, striking away from it, was making north-eastward for the hills around Loch Abha head. And the wild hunt swept after her, hooves drumming through the blackened heather, skirting little tarns that reflected the sword-grey sky, startling the green plover from the pasture clearings. Far over to the west the clouds were breaking as they came up into the hills, and a bar of sodden daffodil light was broadening beyond the Island, casting an oily gleam over the wicked swirling water of the Old Woman, while away and away northward, the high snows of Cruachan caught the westering beams and shone out sour-white against the storm-clouds dark behind.

  But now the chase was turning tail to the sunset, and all at once Conory let out a startled curse, and urging his horse level with Phaedrus’s, shouted, ‘By the Black Goddess! She’s making for the Royal Water and Caledonia!’

  And his words were caught up in a startled splurge of voices and echoed to and fro behind him.

  ‘The vixen!’ Phaedrus said, and laughed. ‘You were saying it would be a sad thing if the quarry were to outrun the hunt. The Sun’s warmth for ever on the shoulders of the man who rode that mare today!’

  After that it was a hunt in deadly earnest, and shouting to the rest, Phaedrus crouched lower and dug in his heels and settled down to ride as he had never ridden in his life before. The ground began to be cut up; soon they were into a maze of shallow glens, wooded in their hollows, and tangled with stone-brambles and bilberry and sour juniper scrub along the ridges between; and once they thought they had lost her – until Baruch the Grass-Snake pointed across the glen, yelling, ‘There she goes!’ and on the crest of the far ridge, the flying shape of horse and rider showed for an instant against the sky. They wheeled the horses and plunged downhill after her, fording the little burn between its snow-puddled edges, and stringing out in a bee-line up the opposite hill-side. When they gained the crest, she was nowhere to be seen, but a few moments later, she came into view again, heading up the glen towards the high moors; she had doubled northward, in an effort to throw them off her trail, relying maybe on the fading light to cover her. But there was just too much light left, and in turning north she had missed the ford a short way downstream, and was left with a tiring horse, and fast water running between her and her way of escape.

  Conory was riding almost neck-to-neck with Phaedrus, a little in advance of the rest. He leaned towards him and said quickly, ‘It is seven years since you were in these hills. Will you let me give the o
rders?’

  Phaedrus nodded, and Conory fell back a little, shouting over his shoulder to the smother of horsemen that followed after, ‘The mare is tiring fast, and if we can hold her in sight a while longer, she’s ours! Baruch, Finn, Domingart, you three ride the lightest of us all – back to the ford with you, and come up the far side. If you can reach the glen head before her, you can turn her back, while we keep her from breaking away on this side, and we’ll have her before the last light goes!’

  The three young men wheeled their horses and plunged away, while the main chase swept on after their desperate, flagging quarry. But in a short while they appeared again, deliberately showing themselves on the skyline, and going like the Blue Riders of the West Wind. Phaedrus saw the black mare flinch sideways, flinging up her head, as though the hand on her bridle had involuntarily jerked at the bit; the rider snatched a glance over her shoulder; he could almost feel her despairing moment of indecision, then she wheeled about and took to the open hill-side, swinging west again.

  It was not quite a hunt now, more like rounding up a runaway colt. The Companions were not only behind her but creeping up on either side, heading her back the way she had come. The light was going fast as they dropped down from the hills on to lower ground. What still lingered of it lay over the wide levels of Mhoin Mhor stretching grey and dun and dreary-pale towards the sea; but on the left, behind the down-thrust tongue of the hills, the gathering twilight could not yet quench the one stretch of full colour in all that winter evening, the luminous, wicked green of bog between its islands of half-thawed snow.

  The distance between them and the wild rider was lessening steadily, the mare, despite all her valiant efforts, rocking in her gallop and almost done. Then the girl snatched one more glance behind her, as though judging the distance that she still had in hand, and wrenching the mare round in her tracks, sent her plunging down into the hazel woods that sloped southward into those luminous green shadows.