The Horsemasters

by Joan Wolf

  Ronan was scanning east now, his face turned slightly away from her. “I had decided before I left the Buffalo tribe that it would be better to present myself as a man from one of the other tribes of the Kindred,” he said. “I did not think that tribes that follow the Mother would be overly hospitable to one of her castoffs, so I cut off my braid and pretended to be a follower of Sky God.”

  His rueful voice did not entirely disguise his underlying bitterness. Nel was tensely quiet. “The tribes of the Mother wanted no part of a man of the Kindred,” Ronan said. He shrugged. “But they would not have wanted me if I had told them the truth, either, so I really cannot say that I made a mistake.”

  Nel felt building within her an anger so great that she thought her chest would burst with it. She pictured his rejection, his isolation, and her heart burned with fury. How could Arika have done this to him?

  “…that is when I found the valley,” he was saying. “I was so confused, Nel; I did not know where to go.” He was talking to her now the way he always had, and Nel blinked hack tears. He said, “Nigak and I climbed back up the Altas, and Nigak found it.” He turned his head to give her a swift smile. A real smile. “That is why I called it the Valley of the Wolf, Nigak began to chase one of the horses from a herd we came upon, and right before my eyes the horse disappeared into a wall of solid rock! When I investigated, I found the path into the valley.”

  The light was beginning to grow dim. Night was coming on. Nel said gruffly, “Tyr told me that they said at the gathering you had named the valley for yourself, the lone wolf.”

  He quirked one black brow. “Did they? Well, they were wrong.”

  “And what is it like, Ronan, Nigak’s valley?”

  “It is beautiful, minnow,” he replied simply. “I cannot say for certain that no one else has ever been there, but there are no signs of human life, no old shelters or hearthplaces. Only the herds of horse and antelope. The ibex. The sheep. The eagles.”

  Nel did not speak, only drew in a long slow breath. His teeth looked very white in the slowly gathering dusk. “You will love it,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “When I first saw it I thought: I can survive in such a place. Nigak and I, we can survive.”

  At the starkness of his words, Nel’s nails bit into her palms so deeply they drew blood. Ronan was once more scanning the hillside. “I lived there alone for several moons,” he said, “and then I met Bror.”

  She said through the pain in her chest, “Who is Bror?”

  “One of my men. The Ibex tribe had expelled him, and he had decided to aim for the tribes of the plain. They gave him the same welcome they had given me, however, and, since he did not have a clever wolf with him, he was reduced to wandering the pastures of the high Altas.”

  “Why did the Ibex tribe expel him?” Nel asked.

  She saw the whites of his eyes move as he shot her a sideways look. “He murdered his wife.”

  “Oh,” said Nel.

  “It is not as bad as it sounds,” Ronan said, and he told her Bror’s story. “He was in a pit of despair when I met him,” Ronan concluded, “so I brought him back to the valley with me, and we lived together for the rest of the summer.”

  “You helped each other,” Nel said.

  In the dusk she saw Ronan’s mouth curl with irony. “We were not exactly a happy pair, minnow.”

  “Who was your next recruit?” she asked.

  “Asok. He is from one of the tribes of the plain. They cast him out because he raped a woman.”

  “That is nice,” Nel said.

  “Asok says it was not rape, that she was willing. The girl’s mother, however, said it was rape.” His voice was very dry. “The tribe followed the Goddess, and the woman’s word held. Asok was cast out.” Ronan’s profile was even more hawklike than usual. “I was certainly not in any position to question his story.”

  Nel said nothing.

  “This was in the autumn, during Buffalo Moon,” he continued, “At Leaf Fall Moon we added Dai.” He glanced her way. “He and his brother were out hunting, and his brother was killed by Dai’s spear. Dai swears it was an accident, but his father did not believe him. It seems there was not always good feelings between the two brothers—or between his father and Dai.”

  Nel nodded and smoothed the tip of her index finger along the buckskin that covered her knee.

  “That was the lot of us the first winter,” he said. “We stayed in the valley, and the following spring we added more men. Then came the women.”

  “What could a woman possibly do to cause her tribe to cast her out?” Nel asked in wonder.

  “Well,” Ronan said with amusement, “actually most of our women were not cast out; they chose to leave on their own. Two of them even brought their husbands along with them.”

  Nel smiled, more at the amusement in his voice than at his words. “Tell me,” she prompted.

  So he told her of Beki and Kasar, and of Lemo and Yoli. He told her of Mait’s two steadfast sisters. He told her of the two women who had been expelled for adultery.

  “Their tribes cast out these women because they slept with a man who was not their husband?” Nel said incredulously.

  “Sa.” Ronan shrugged. “To my thinking, it is the husband who should be ashamed for not being able to satisfy his wife. But that is the Way of Sky God.”

  Silence fell. For a little while they had fallen back into the old companionship, but with the mention of sex, the new constraint had come back. “It is growing dark,” Ronan said abruptly. “Let’s go into the cave and I’ll build up the fire.”

  Nel sat cross-legged on her sleeping skins, Nigak beside her, and watched Ronan out of troubled green eyes. The new fire roared at the cave opening, a ward against night-prowling animals, and its leaping flames clearly illuminated Ronan’s tall, lean figure as he came toward her. He halted when he was still at a respectable distance, sat and pulled out his knife and a sharpening stone.

  Nel was not ready for sleep as yet, and she sought to restore the comradeship they had briefly known by asking him more questions. “How many of the women in the Tribe of the Wolf follow the Mother?” she began.

  “Just two,” he answered. “Berta and Tora, Mait’s sisters. The others are all from the tribes of the Kindred.”

  Nel watched the shadows dancing on the planes of his face. He was concentrating on the flint blade of his knife. “The tribes of Sky God are hard on women,” she murmured.

  For the briefest of moments he lifted his gaze. “I have thought that more than once,” he said, then went back to his blade.

  What was the matter with him? Nel thought unhappily. Why was he acting so strangely? Why wouldn’t he look at her? Most of all, why was she feeling that she could not ask him these questions?

  She asked him another kind of a question instead. “What of the men? What god do they worship?”

  “The men are more evenly divided.”

  She thought about this. “How do you keep the peace?” she asked with real curiosity.

  His lips curled into a wry smile. “With difficulty.”

  She would not let him get away with the evasion. “But how do you do it?”

  He shrugged. “I am the chief. They do as I say, or they go. That is how I do it.”

  Nel considered this ruthlessly simple philosophy, her brow furrowed. “Are all of your women married?” she asked next.

  He let out his breath in a faint noise of exasperation. “So many questions!”

  “I want to know,” she said stubbornly.

  “All except Eken are married.”

  “Eken?” Nel said. “Who is Eken?”

  Nigak, disturbed by the new note in Nel’s voice, got up from beside her and went to lie down next to Ronan, resting his muzzle on Ronan’s thigh. Ronan smoothed the wolf’s ruff and said calmly, “Eken is Fara’s sister,” and then he told her the story of Fara’s twins.

  Nel bent her head in order to conceal the tears that had begun to pour
down her face. He had kept the twins, she thought. Her throat ached with the effort of holding back her sobs. She loved him so much. He had kept the twins.

  He finished his story. She would not look at him. “And will you marry this Eken?” she managed to get out in a constricted voice.

  “Na.” She heard him put down his knife. “Are you crying?” he asked suspiciously.

  She shook her head in false denial.

  “Don’t, Nel.” His voice was almost desperate. “I hate it when you cry.”

  “I c-can’t help it,” she sobbed, giving up her attempt at concealment.

  “But why?” He sounded harassed. “I promise you, the twins are perfectly safe.”

  “I am c-crying because you k-kept them,” she said.

  He muttered something she could not understand.

  “And I am crying because I love you,” she sobbed even harder.

  Even through her own distress she could hear the sharp intake of his breath. After a moment she heard him ask, “But why should that make you cry?”

  She answered in what could only be called a wail, “Because you don’t love me!”

  Silence.

  “Of course I love you,” he said distractedly. “I have always loved you. You know that. Why else would I have come back for you?”

  “You hardly talked to me all day!”

  He did not come to comfort her. He just said, “I am sorry. I had something on my mind. I did not mean to ignore you, minnow. Now, please stop crying!”

  She lifted her face with its streaming eyes. “You think I am still a child,” she accused him. “You still tell me to w-wash in the river.”

  His face was wearing an odd, strained look. “What do you want from me, Nel?” His eyes had shadows under them. “You will have to tell me, because I don’t understand.”

  Nel sniffled and said, “I want you to m-marry me.”

  He stared at her and did not answer.

  “Do you remember how you asked me the other day if there was a man that I liked?” She wiped away her tears with the backs of her hands and sniffled again. She faced him bravely. “Well, if you had not come for me by Winter Fires, I was going to go and look for you. I was not going to take another man.”

  There was an empty space between them, and they gazed at each other across it. Mixed with the smell of the smoke, there drifted to Nel’s nostrils the scent of rain. The fire flared suddenly, exposing clearly the expression on Ronan’s face. With a jolt, Nel recognized it as the look she had seen so many times before when she had caught him looking at Borba, or Cala, or one of his other girls. Only now it was for her. She stopped breathing.

  “Think, minnow,” he said. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  She stared at that hard, intent, hawklike face. He meant now, she realized in astonishment. Now. Her eyes stretched wide in amazement. She did not have breath enough to speak, but she managed to nod her head.

  Sa, she thought to herself over the thundering of her heart. Sa, Ronan. It is what I want.

  * * * *

  Ronan could scarcely believe what had just happened, what Nel had just said. He had thought she would be the one who would find comfort in picking up their old relationship once again. It had been for her sake that he had been treating her like the little girl he had once known.

  You think I am still a child, she had said. Dhu, did she think he was blind?

  It was true that he had been terse with her all day, but that was because he was finding it so difficult to pretend to be her brother. He had been brotherly last night, and what a mistake that had been! It had been instinct on his part to comfort her. He knew how she dreaded the rain. But then, when she had nestled so trustingly against him, he had thought that he would go mad. She had slept; he had not closed his eyes.

  He looked now into her beautiful eyes. He had never seen them so green. Dhu, how he wanted her! It was a pain in him, the wanting. She had nodded in answer to his question, but he thought she looked uncertain. She probably had not expected him to respond as quickly as he had. He moved Nigak’s head from his leg, held out his hand to her and said softly, “Come here to me, minnow.”

  He watched her rise from her skins, her slim young body unfolding with supple grace. She crossed the space that divided them and dropped down beside him on her knees. Nigak got up and went to sleep on the warm spot that Nel had just vacated.

  Ronan cupped her face between his hands. “Are you yet a maiden?” he asked, though he was certain he knew the answer.

  “Sa,” she whispered.

  He should be sorry for that. He had been the first man before and he knew that mating was painful for a maiden. He smoothed back the silky hair at her temples. There were little hollows there, delicately scooped in the bone. The firelight accented the faint slant of her eyes, making them look mysterious and exotic. He ran his thumbs along her cheeks, feeling the sharpness of the bones beneath the perfect skin. “We can wait if you like,” he heard himself saying. “You don’t have to lie with me now if you are not yet ready, Nel. I will wait.”

  I must be mad, he thought, and waited, hands cupped around her face, for her answer.

  She ran her tongue around the inner circle of her lips to wet them. Every part of him was wildly aroused. It had been too long since he had lain with a woman. He would die if she wanted to wait. She gave him a faint, shy smile and said, “Now.”

  He bent to put his mouth on hers and felt himself rocked by fierce, hot passion. Her lips were so soft. She yielded before him, letting him push her back upon the skins, raising her arms to encircle his neck. So soft, she was. So warm and sweet and soft. He kissed her lips, her cheeks, her throat. Her skin was like new velvet. He stripped off her tunic and buried his face between her breasts.

  “Ronan,” she said. She reached under his own shirt and ran her hands up and down the bare skin of his back. The touch of her fingers drove him wild. The scent of the herbs with which she washed her hair filled his nostrils. He put his mouth upon one small, perfect breast, and heard her whimper deep in her throat. His blood roared in his ears, and he knew suddenly that he was losing control.

  “Minnow,” he said in a desperate voice he did not recognize. He put his hand upon the waist of her deerskin trousers and lifted his head to look at her. “Minnow, I cannot wait…”

  She smiled at him. Through the red mist of desire, he saw that smile.

  “It’s all right, Ronan,” she said. Her small hands touched his, helping him with her clothes. He was sweating all over. “Nel,” he groaned, as he drove into the soft and tender bliss of her. “Dhu, Nel…”

  * * * *

  It was Nel who went to sleep first, nestled in the curve of his body. Ronan lay awake, trying to cope with an unfamiliar storm of emotion.

  He looked down at the fawn-colored head that was tucked so trustingly into his shoulder. He had hurt her. He understood that there was no way around that, but he had hurt her more than was necessary. He had been too urgent, too hungry. He, who had always prided himself upon his skill in giving delight. He had been about as skillful as a bull, he thought. And with Nel! But he had wanted her so badly. He had wanted her more than he ever remembered wanting anything before.

  She stirred a little in his arms, and then was quiet again.

  Ronan held her, and for the first time in his life he understood the meaning of sexual possessiveness. Nel belonged to him. She always had; she always would. No one else. Him.

  He bent his head and buried his mouth in the silky hair that was spread on his shoulder.

  She stirred again. “Ronan?” Her voice sounded blurry with sleep.

  “Sa.” His reply was soft. “Are you all right, minnow?”

  “Mmmm.” She was drifting back to sleep even as she spoke. After a few minutes his own eyes began to close, and then he too slept.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nel awoke to find Nigak licking her face. She saw instantly that Ronan was no longer beside her, and she was pierced by lonelin
ess. Don’t be a fool, she scolded herself, as she sat up and patted Nigak vigorously. He has only gone to check the bird traps; he will be back.

  When Nigak felt that he had been greeted with sufficient enthusiasm, Nel arose and went to look outside the cave. The sky was gray and overcast. There was still no sign of Ronan, so Nel took a skull container and went to the stream where they had got their water the previous night, She filled the container and washed herself. Then she filled it again and returned to the cave to brew morning tea.

  Ronan returned just as the water was beginning to boil. He had two quail in his hand, and suddenly, looking at that splendid, intensely masculine figure outlined against the cave opening, Nel felt shy. He was accustomed to girls who were so much more experienced than she…she had not been very adept last night…she looked away from him and said stiffly, “The tea is almost ready.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’ll pluck the birds.”

  Nel watched him from under lowered lashes. She knew the look of him so well: the set of his shoulders and collarbone, the arch of his arrogant nose, the black sweep of lashes against the hard line of his cheekbones, his mouth. She thought again of last night, felt her color rise, and jerked her eyes away from his face, to the thin, strong hands that were dealing so competently with the bird. She shivered and looked away.

  “Are you too sore to walk today, Nel?” she heard him ask.

  The color in her face deepened. She shook her head.

  Silence fell, not the uncomfortable silence of the last few days, but not the companionable silence they had always known either. This was a waiting silence. Finally Ronan said, “Is something wrong, minnow?”

  She heard the concern in his voice. She shook her head again. She looked at him out of the side of her eyes and said in a small voice, “I am feeling shy.”

  At first he looked astonished, and then he grinned. Nel looked at that wonderful, familiar smile—so vivid, so beguiling, so ablaze with the sheer joy of living—and she grinned back.