The Horsemasters

by Joan Wolf

  Ronan was quivering like a stag brought to bay, his narrow nostrils flaring below the high-bridged arch of his nose. Sensing that he was about to turn and run, Morna reached up swiftly and caught him around the back of his head. Then, rising up on her toes, she pressed her mouth to his, still holding his head in her hands so he could not pull away. His crisp black hair felt warm under her chilled fingers. His mouth was hard. She thought she felt him beginning to respond to her kiss, and her soul thrilled with a strange violation of feeling. She wanted to touch him and touch him and touch him, till she had all of him in her knowledge, till she had drawn him into her…

  She felt his body vibrate, felt the power of him as he bent toward her, closed upon her. Triumph mixed with lust in her surging blood.

  And then he had gripped her by the shoulders and was shaking her, shaking her so brutally that her very bones seemed to rattle. She thought she would faint, so ferociously was he shaking her.

  “Do not ever touch me again.” He was saying that over and over as he shook her and shook her. His hard fingers were grinding great purple bruises into the soft white flesh of her shoulders.

  “Ronan!” she managed to gasp through chattering teeth, and at last he let her go.

  Their faces were still very close. For a moment they stared into each other’s eyes, locked in a strange, pitiless kind of intimacy. It was then that Morna understood at last that Ronan would never lie with her.

  He dropped his hands and stepped away, breathing like a runner who has reached the end of his endurance. Morna felt within herself a desire for deep violence. She said through stiff lips, “You will be sorry for this, Ronan.” Then she pushed past him and ran like a deer to the path which led southward out of the valley. In less than a minute she had disappeared around the bend of the hill.

  After a while, so they would not be lost to the tribe, Ronan went to retrieve the sleeping skins she had brought.

  * * * *

  This time Ronan wanted to avoid Nel and her too perceptive eyes. He stayed completely away from home for the rest of the day, returning only after dark had begun to fall. He went immediately to the men’s cave, where he spent the remainder of a sleepless night.

  You will be sorry for this, Ronan.

  He thought of Morna’s words, he remembered the look on her face when she had said them, and he knew that he must be careful. She would want to punish him for his rejection. He had best keep well out of her way.

  Leaf Fall Moon died and Stag Fighting Moon rose in the sky. The tribe celebrated Winter Fires, with Arika and not Morna taking the role of the Goddess. The weather grew steadily colder, and a few dustings of snow fell. Ronan began to hope that he was safe.

  It was at the beginning of Reindeer Moon that it happened. Most of the men had gone upriver to hunt reindeer, but Ronan had remained at home to finish rebuilding one of the huts that had burned down when a spark from the hearth fire had ignited the walls. The day was cold and the women were all within the warmth of their own homes, so there was no one to see when Morna walked into Ronan’s almost-completed hut.

  He was alone. Nel had borne him company the day before, but her stepmother had kept her busy sewing skins this day.

  As soon as he saw Morna come in the door, Ronan knew that he was trapped.

  Morna stared at him, her eyes wide and expressionless. The light from the open door illuminated her face and hair. He dropped the branch he had been about to weave into the wall structure and faced her, hands loose at his sides.

  “You should have done what I wanted, Ronan,” she said.

  He knew how an animal must feel when it is cornered. As he stood before her, watching helplessly, she took off her fur tunic and dropped it on the floor of the hut. Then she put her hands upon the neck of her deerskin shirt and ripped it down its entire front. He could see her miraculously white skin, see the pink nipples of her bare breasts. She tore the leather tie off the end of her braid and shook her hair until it was floating wildly about her face. Then she began to scream.

  At that first high piercing shriek, Ronan panicked. He pushed past Morna roughly, bolted out through the doorframe, and ran.

  Everywhere women were erupting out of their huts, shouting to each other in confusion and fear. The blood pounded in Ronan’s ears as he raced toward the river, seeking only to get away from that high-pitched screaming that was splitting his skull apart, splitting his world apart.

  “Ronan!” He thought he could hear Nel’s voice crying his name.

  And over all the babble of voices, again and again and again, came Morna’s high, piercing screams.

  In front of him, coming up the river, there appeared a solid phalanx of men. The reindeer hunters had returned.

  “Stop him!” It was Arika, calling to the men.

  It was the sound of his mother’s voice that brought cold sanity back to Ronan. It is over, he thought. He slowed his headlong flight. Better go back and face it. He stopped, chest heaving. There is nothing else to be done.

  * * * *

  Arika stood, white-faced in the almost-finished hut, and looked at her sobbing daughter.

  “He wanted me to lie with him, Mother,” Morna said. “He said he was the son of Sky God just as I was the daughter of the Mother, and we should overthrow you and rule the tribe together.” Morna shuddered. “When I said I would not, he…he tried to force me.”

  “Did he enter you?” Arika asked. Her voice seemed to her to be coming from somewhere outside of herself, somewhere a long way away.

  Morna sobbed again.

  “Did he?” Arika asked.

  Morna looked up slantwise, quickly—as if, Arika thought, she were trying to make up her mind what to answer. “Na,” she said. “I fought him off.”

  The doorframe of’ the unfinished hut was not covered yet with skins, but the light from the open door was suddenly blocked by bodies. The men had brought Ronan.

  They thrust him roughly into the hut to stand before her. Arika stared at him. Where had he got that proud dark face? Was it Iun who had lain with her the night this boy was conceived, or was it some other power?

  The son of Sky God, he had called himself, giving voice to Arika’s most profound and unacknowledged fear.

  The Mistress’s eyes moved over her son. He had been wearing a fur tunic to work in the cold unheated hut, and the tunic had been pulled askew. Morna must have done that, she thought, or perhaps it was from the rough handling of the men.

  Why was he still wearing his fur tunic?

  He stood before her, his arrogant head held high. His eyes were wide and dark and bitter. He said nothing.

  “Did you do this to your sister?” Arika asked.

  He did not answer, but looked at Morna. She stared back, and Arika thought she detected a glint of triumph in her daughter’s eyes before she broke again into wailing sobs.

  Ronan turned away. “Na,” he said stonily. “I did not touch my sister.”

  “He did! He did!” Morna sobbed. “He said that we should mate, that he would rule with me and bring the Way of Sky God to share the Way of the Mother. Then, when I said I would not, he tore my clothes and tried to…tried to…” Morna broke once more into wild weeping.

  “If Morna’s tale is true, why is there no mark upon Ronan?” It was Neihle’s voice. Arika’s brother looked at her. “His clothes were not disordered when we came up with him,” Neihle said, “and his hair is tidy. There are no fingernail marks upon him, Mistress. No sign he has been in a struggle.” Neihle turned to his nephew. “What happened, Ronan?” he asked.

  “Morna wanted to lie with me,” Ronan answered. His voice was flat and oddly still. “It was I who refused, not her.”

  “Liar!” Morna screamed. “He held me down so I could not fight him, then when I started to scream, he ran away!” Her hand was at her breast, holding her torn garment together. She glared defiantly at Neihle. “If he was not guilty, why did he run away?”

  “That is so,” Arika heard herself saying. “He pr
oved his guilt when he ran away.” She looked again at her son. “I should have exposed you when you were born,” she said and saw the shock of her words in his eyes. She continued bitterly, “I knew it, yet I was weak. I can afford to be weak no longer.” Her gaze moved from Ronan to scan the circle of men who were watching her. She did not like what she saw upon their faces.

  Tyr, Ronan’s friend, broke the silence. “You cannot have considered Neihle’s words, Mistress. If there was an attempt at rape, Ronan should bear the marks of it.”

  Now Ronan spoke. “Morna lies, Mistress.” His eyes burned with a keen cold light. “She lies, and I am thinking that you know it.”

  “I am not lying!” Morna screamed, sensing that the tide of sympathy was swinging against her. She put her hand upon her mother’s arm. “He tried to rape me, Mother. He is not marked because I could not fight him—he is too strong!” She stared furiously around the circle of men’s faces. “I am not lying!”

  They thought perhaps she was. it was written on every male face there. Arika looked at her brother, looked at her son, and understood the extent of her danger.

  I must get rid of him now, Arika thought. If I wait any longer, it will be too late. She looked again at the faces of the men crowded into the hut. It may already be too late.

  She closed her eyes briefly, summoning to her aid all the power of the Goddess. She drew herself up, and authority streamed from every inch of her being. “Hear me,” she said. “I am the Mistress of this tribe. I am the Voice of the Mother, the Goddess on Earth. This boy has dared to lay an incestuous hand upon my daughter, the Chosen One of the Mother, and he must be cast out.”

  Her voice deepened, and the power of the Goddess came over her. Arika could feel it, coursing in her veins, throbbing in her voice. She stared at Neihle, forcing his will to bend to hers. She said, “Anyone who disobeys this command will bear my curse.”

  A shudder ran throughout the men. The hut was deathly silent. Even Morna’s weeping had stilled. Arika kept her eyes on Neihle. “This boy is a danger to all the tribe,” she said. “An enemy of the Way of the Mother.” She saw the faintest flicker of recognition in Neihle’s eyes. He knew, she thought. He knew she spoke the truth. “The Mother says he must be cast out.”

  Some of the men looked to Neihle, but he said nothing. At last Arika turned to Ronan. “You are to leave this place by fall of night. I will send word to the tribes who dwell near us that none of them is to take you in. You bear my curse,” Arika said. “My curse and the curse of the Mother.”

  The silence in the hut was absolute.

  Ronan tore his eyes away from the Mistress’s, looked around him, and knew that Arika had won. Since birth the men of the Red Deer had been bred to revere the Mistress. They would not go against her now.

  Into the silence came the voice of a child, crying from the door opening, “Mistress, do not believe her! She has tried to seduce Ronan before…”

  It was Nel.

  Arika looked at Erek. “Get her out of here,” she said.

  The big hunter put his hand upon the child’s thin shoulder.

  “Na!” Nel tried to pull away. “You must listen to me! Ronan is telling the truth!”

  “Go outside, Nel,” Ronan said. He did not look at his small cousin; his eyes were all for his mother. They looked like black holes in his stark face. He was breathing like a suffering animal.

  “It is not finished between us, Mistress,” he said.

  “Sa,” said Arika wearily. There was the taste of sour bile in her mouth. “I am thinking that it is.”

  She said to Pier, “Take him away.”

  * * * *

  The challenge had come too soon, Ronan thought, as he put together the pack of belongings Arika was allowing him to bring away with him. A little more time, another year perhaps, and the men would have turned against Morna.

  Arika had seen that, of course. It was why she had acted so decisively. She knew she had to get rid of Ronan while still she could.

  As always with her, the daughter came before the son.

  Cast out. He was cast out from his tribe. Cast out from the other tribes in the vicinity as well, for none of them would dare to risk Arika’s calling down on them the wrath of the Mother.

  He could not quite comprehend it. Every man belonged to a tribe. It was not possible to survive without the companionship of one’s own kind…

  That, of course, was what Arika was counting on. She thought she was sending him to his death. It is finished, she had said.

  “Ronan…” He looked up. Tyr was coming into the men’s cave, and there were tears in his dark blue eyes. “Ronan, I do not believe her,” Tyr said. His voice was shaking.

  Neither do most of the other men, Ronan thought bitterly. But they will not stand up to her. Not even Neihle…

  He made himself shrug, as if it did not matter. “The Mistress has spoken, and the tribe will obey.”

  “I will go with you,” Tyr said.

  Ronan stared at him, surprised. “Did you not hear? The Mistress said she will curse anyone who comes with me.”

  “I do not care,” Tyr said passionately. “I will go with you anyway.”

  Ronan thought, Now that he is out from under the Mistress’s eye, Tyr can act like a man. But he cannot stand up to her face-to-face. None of them can.

  “Na, Tyr,” Ronan said. “Stay here where you belong.”

  “I belong with you!” Tyr cried.

  Ronan turned his head away. “I do not want you.”

  Dusk was falling and the sky over Deer Hill had turned to lavender when Ronan turned his back upon the Tribe of the Red Deer and began his lonely walk down the Greatfish River.

  Nel and Nigak were waiting for him around the second bend.

  He saw the sleeping skins at her feet and said, “You cannot come with me, minnow.” He spoke as he had not spoken to Tyr earlier, gently.

  “You cannot stop me,” Nel said. He was close enough now to see that her eyes were red and swollen from weeping. “I hate her!” Nel cried. Her small hands were clenched into fists at her sides. “I hate them both! I won’t stay here with them, Ronan. I won’t!”

  Nigak’s ears were at half-mast as he looked anxiously from Nel to Ronan and back again. He whined, but neither youngster paid him any mind.

  “She has thrown you away the way she throws away a twin,” Nel said passionately, “I hate her!”

  “I am no helpless babe, Nel,” Ronan answered. “Nor do I mean to perish, I promise you that.” His face hardened. “I would not give her the satisfaction.”

  “It’s what she wants.” Nel began to cry again, her face screwing up with anguish. “She wants you to d-die.”

  “Listen to me, minnow.” He put down his heavy pack, then held out his arms. She flung herself into them. “I cannot take you with me,” he said over the small round head that was pressed into his shoulder. “You are too young. You would only tie me down. I will be safer on my own.”

  “No one would listen to me,” she sobbed into the reindeer fur of his shoulder. “I tried to tell them about Morna, about what she had done before, but no one would listen.”

  “They are afraid of the Mistress,” Ronan said grimly. “They did not want to hear what you had to say.”

  Nel sobbed on, and he held her, wishing that he had not met her like this. Until now his anger had made him strong; he did not want to feel what Nel was making him feel.

  “Come,” he said bracingly, “it will be growing dark soon. I must go.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and pried her away from his chest.

  Nel sobbed on.

  “I will come back for you, minnow,” he heard himself saying. “I promise you I will come back.”

  “You p-promise?”

  “I promise.”

  Valiantly, she tried to smile. She said, “Well, if you won’t take me, Ronan, at least take Nigak.”

  Hope flickered in the bleakness of Ronan’s heart. He looked at the wolf. Nigak’s yellow eyes
were fixed on Nel’s face. The hope died. Ronan shook his head and said, “He would never leave you.”

  “For you, he would,” Nel answered. “If I told him to.”

  Ronan swallowed. He wanted desperately to have Nigak. “I couldn’t take him away from you, Nel,” he said. “You love him.”

  “I have Sharan,” she said. “And I would feel better if I knew that he was with you. Please, Ronan, take him.”

  It was not in him to refuse any longer. “All right,” Ronan said, “if he will come.” And he reached once more for his pack.

  “Where will you go?” Nel asked, watching with great tragic eyes as he shouldered the heavy load.

  “To our summer camp for now,” Ronan said. “The caves there are not in use during the winter, and there is yet some game in the area. I can fish through the ice on the river, too, and there are always birds.”

  “That is a good idea.” She brightened. “I know, Ronan! You must search out a place that the Mistress does not know about. Then you can come back and get me, and we will start our own tribe away from them all.”

  He did not smile at her naiveté, but answered gravely, “That is a good idea.” He glanced at the sky. “It is growing late, Nel. I must go.”

  She nodded hard, three times.

  He turned away.

  “Nigak,” he heard Nel saying behind him, “go with Ronan.”

  The wolf whined in protest. Ronan felt his muscles clench.

  “Go with Ronan,” Nel said again.

  Ronan did not look back. Nigak was not going to come. Desolation, so successfully kept at bay all afternoon by anger, swept through his soul. He made himself continue walking, a solitary figure in the growing dusk, his eyes fixed steadily ahead.

  Suddenly, Ronan felt something warm and damp poke into the hollow of his hand, It was Nigak’s nose. Tears slid blindly down Ronan’s face as his fingers closed gently over that precious black gift of love. He and the wolf walked on.