The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn)

by Llywelyn, Morgan

  The guest house was a spacious lodge, permanently fitted out with the best the tribe had to offer. The four Scythians followed Epona, leading their horses, and a great number of Kelti trooped at their heels. Epona walked with her head high and her step light, hoping the spirit of Toutorix was watching. He had trained her well.

  At the door of the lodge she turned to her guests and smiled, puzzled that none of them would meet her eyes. Eye contact was a ritual among the people, for it was often said, “Eyes that meet yours cannot keep the secrets of the spirit from you.” Yet these Scythians looked at one’s nose or mouth or hair. It made her feel awkward.

  “Please make this your home for as long as you stay with us, o Kazhak,” she said solemnly. “I will see that you are immediately served red wine, and heated water for bathing.”

  “Bathing? You mean wash? In water?” He recoiled, appalled by the suggestion.

  “But of course. We will have a cauldron heated for you at once, and after you are purified the …”

  “No wash!” Kazhak announced with finality. “Kazhak is Scyth. Not pollute water with body.”

  It was a delicate moment. The people of the Kelti looked at one another with bafflement. It was important not to offend the prohibitions of others, but what sort of folk did not wash?

  Kazhak was not insensitive; his ability to detect nuances was part of his survival equipment. He shot a quick glance at his men, warning them to be silent, then addressed the yellow-haired woman, enunciating very carefully so there would be no misunderstanding.

  “Steam make man clean,” he explained to her. “Clay make woman smooth. Keep water clean for drinking only, is it so?” Fixing his eyes on her forehead, he offered a pleasant smile.

  His nostrils curved like the lines of Rigantona’s favorite brooch. His hair was a very dark brown and his skin was tanned to leather by sun and wind, though around the eyelids, in the furrows of squint lines, it was as white as Epona’s. Kazhak’s eyes were as warm and dark as those of his horse, and a keen intelligence burned in them.

  At that moment Kernunnos joined them, his presence creating a distraction that rescued Epona from an awkward situation. The chief priest had dressed himself to impress the strangers. A mantle of wolfskins enveloped his lean body, the heads and tails dangling, the empty eye sockets outlined with red paint. Bracelets of shells from the distant sea of King Aegeus testified to the reach of his arm. From his temples branched the antlers of a great stag.

  In other regions people bowed to their shamans, but apparently no Kelti bowed to another, so Kazhak stood erect also, pleased to observe the local custom. Here was a personage of real importance, and a male. He was finding it disconcerting to be talking to a woman who was not his, but apparently that was another of the local customs. Incredibly, these Kelti women seemed to think they had some sort of status of their own.

  Kazhak turned gratefully to Kernunnos. “There was offer of wine?” he remarked, man to man.

  Kernunnos could not answer immediately. First protocol required he offer the welcome of the spirits, setting forth his own credentials as their representative and introducing the Scythians to the unseen powers whose realm they had entered. Kazhak waited patiently; his three companions busied themselves with hobbling their horses. Such formalities were boring, and they were glad to let Kazhak bear the burden alone.

  When Kernunnos finished his speech he went to the door of the guest house and rang a bronze bell, to alert spirits within. Then he stepped aside, expecting the Scythians to enter.

  Kazhak balked. His three men stood at his back, also unmoving. The spectators shifted their feet and whispered among themselves.

  If a visitor refused to enter the guest lodge it was a mighty insult; Toutorix had always stressed this to his family. Epona still carried his honor on her shoulders. She moved directly in front of Kazhak and put her face so close to his he could not help meeting her eyes. She felt his intense embarrassment and it puzzled her, but she tried to reassure him with a gentle smile and a calm, firm voice. “We offer the best we have,” she said. “Let us give to you.”

  Kazhak’s eyes were filled with doubt. “It is not wise to go into box with strangers,” he told her, rather than Kernunnos or the other men standing around them. His hand was very close to his sword hilt.

  “This is not a trap,” Epona said. “It is a house.”

  “Dead people are put in houses made of wood,” Kazhak told her. “Living men should be under open sky, is it so?”

  It was getting easier for her to understand his words. He spoke slowly, his tongue giving strange music to the familiar Kelti words, but her ear had found the rhythm of his speech and she tried to answer him in kind.

  “Among our people living men sleep safely in wooden houses, and are not afraid,” she said. “We harm no guests in our houses. The guest is honored here.”

  It was like trying to win the confidence of an animal; a magnificent wild animal. The Scythian was as muscular as any Kelt, except perhaps for Goibban, and his clothes could not disguise his natural grace. He walked on the balls of his feet, moving like a mountain cat, and even standing still he gave an impression of strength and agility.

  Still he hesitated. Without thinking, without any prompting from the spirit within, Epona reached out and put her hand on his arm. For the third time their eyes locked.

  With a great show of bravado the Scythian threw back his shoulders and stalked into the lodge.

  His men followed him as far as the doorway, unwilling to trust themselves to the containment of the walls but hoping for a share of the wine.

  Kazhak moved suspiciously around the room, eyeing everything and touching nothing. Epona made certain there was fresh drinking water in the bronze hydria and sent a woman to bring a torch bearing wifefire from the lodge of the chief. Soon the interior of the house was golden and glowing with warmth, and women were arriving with baskets of bread and bowls of cheese.

  Still, Kazhak seemed uncomfortable. He had not seated himself on a bedshelf, preferring to stand close enough to the open door to see his men outside. When Sirona carried in a large krater brimming with wine, Kazhak indicated that he wanted the other Scythians to sample the beverage first. Only then did he drink.

  “Is good,” he told Epona approvingly. It was his first recognition of her efforts at hospitality, and she felt she had won a small victory. He still would not meet eyes with anyone else.

  Epona did not mention bathing again.

  The Scythians were like birds who will not nest, but only perch on the rim, ready to fly. There was no point in waiting until they made themselves comfortable, as they seemed to have no intention of doing so. Therefore Kernunnos and Poel moved ahead to the next step of tradition by leading a deputation of elders and heads of families into the lodge to share wine and introductions. Epona persuaded Kazhak to sit next to the hearth and drink with them, though he went through the motions like a wary horse, ready to spook.

  Kernunnos seated himself at the Scythian’s cup hand; Taranis at the other side. The chief’s brief consultation with the elders had not been reassuring; they had no special suggestions for ways to handle these strangers. “Watch and listen,” was the best they could advise.

  Epona, Sirona, and other women of the noble families moved around the lodge, serving food and taking part in the conversation of the men. Kazhak turned to Taranis. “Chief has many wives?” he suggested, nodding toward the bustle of women; big, fair, blue-eyed women.

  “No, just one,” Taranis answered.

  Surprised, Kazhak turned to Kernunnos. “Just one wife?” he asked, as if he could not believe such a thing.

  The priest smiled. Kernunnos had a trick of smiling with his lips without ever letting the expression reach his eyes. Kazhak disliked the effect. He was reminded of the lions and spotted cats that roamed his native grasslands, sometimes freezing their prey with the terrible power of their gaze.

  “A man has one head, one wife, one lodge,” the priest replied.


  “Is it so?” Kazhak looked at the furs piled on the bedshelves, the carved wooden chests and handsome household pottery that were part of the furnishings of the guest house. He noted that both men and women wore many bronze ornaments and there was an occasional gleam of gold or electrum.

  “Much wealth,” he commented. “And only one wife.” He turned his head to look toward Epona, who was standing behind him. “You enough wife for him?” His eyes sparkled with good humor.

  Epona felt a blush burning upward from her throat. “I am not the chief’s wife,” she replied. “I am of his brother’s family.” To cover a sudden fit of shyness she offered Kazhak a loaf of bread, but instead of taking it he reached out and seized one of her long braids, pulling it forward so it gleamed in the firelight.

  “The wealth of the Kelti,” Kazhak announced to the room at large, holding up the hair for all to see. “Kelti gold! Is it so?”

  There was a shout of laughter. As awed by the horsemen as they would have been by a manifestation of unfamiliar spirits, the Kelti had been uncertain how to react to these exotic strangers, but Kazhak’s compliment won them. They were soon drinking to him and his horses, gulping the good Hellene wine, and the atmosphere in the lodge became decidedly convivial. An amphora of wine was carried outside for the other Scythians so they could join in the festivities in the way they found most comfortable, under the open sky.

  The miners returning from the Salt Mountain heard the laughter and shouting issuing from the guest lodge as soon as they reached the outskirts of the village. They had come on the run, leaving their axes and mallets forgotten in the galleries. The first strange sight to greet their eyes was the four saddle horses, hobbled with rawhide thongs and encircled by admirers.

  In front of the guest house was another crowd surrounding three strangers who were seated crosslegged on the earth like women, drinking red wine and singing loud songs no one could understand.

  Miners and horsemen stared at each other.

  The seated Scythians looked up at blond or redbearded giants whose eyes were like alpine lakes and shoulders were mountain broad, warmly dressed in leather coats and tunics of woven wool. The miners saw sinewy men with legs curved by lives spent on horseback, and fair skins darkened to swarthiness by the harsh climate of the steppes. Their snarled hair and beards were varying shades of brown, from near-black to light, and their eyes were also brown, though the fairest had gray eyes and a high-bridged, arrogant nose. In spite of the variations in coloring all their faces bore a similar stamp, sculptured into sternness, slightly softened now by wine. But they exuded an air of vitality; the same passion for living animated Kelti and Scythians alike. And to add to their attractiveness, the horsemen were glad to share their wine with the miners.

  After several drinks strangers became friends, making rough jokes that required no subtleties of language to be understood. They found enough words and gestures in common to carry on rudimentary conversation, and discovered that both parties frowned on the Hellene custom of weakening good wine with water.

  Meanwhile, within the guest lodge, Taranis had begun questioning Kazhak about his homeland. The way of life the horseman described soon had his hosts listening enthralled.

  Kazhak explained the unfettered existence of the nomad. “We build no house where enemies can find us. We follow no roads. Horse carry us anywhere, fast. Fold tent, pack wagon, go. We find something we want, take and go. Find woman we want, take and go. Man live on horse, woman live in wagon or tept, do work, keep quiet,” he added meaningfully, though no one noticed.

  Listening to this paean to masculine freedom had even the oldest men leaning forward, eyes alight with interest. Kernunnos noticed their seeming approval and scowled. “But how do you support your tribe?” he wanted to know.

  “We have horses, sheep, cattle. Man with many wives goes where grass is good, plenty meat and cheese, good milk from mares for children. Herds move easy.”

  “Do your women ride on horses, too?” Taranis asked, trying to imagine his beautiful broad-hipped Sirona straddling a horse.

  “No,” Kazhak said shortly, in a tone that indicated he was not interested in any further discussion of women. He had said all there was to be said about them already.

  Old Dunatis wanted to know, “Do you plant any crops?”

  Kazhak looked insulted. “Dig in dirt? No. Let others dig in dirt. We take their grain, we go.”

  Okelos was sitting across the firepit from the Scythian, and at these words he nodded in approval, elbowing the young man sitting next to him.

  Taranis remarked, “We heard last sunseason that there were a few Scyths in the valleys of the Boii, farming.”

  Kazhak’s voice dripped scorn. “Is lie. Real Scyths are horse men only, like Kazhak.”

  Kernunnos leaned forward, trying unsuccessfully to spear the man with his eyes. “And what of your spirits? What holy places do you have for worshiping the powers, if you just ‘take and go’?”

  Kazhak grinned. “God you cannot take with you is no good, is it so? We have no holy places, take gods with us everywhere, is much better. How can place be holy?”

  Kernunnos felt a creeping alarm. “Tell us of your … gods,” he said, feigning benign interest.

  Kazhak was not fooled. “You would not like. Better you tell Kazhak about your gods. Could be, they stronger, then Kazhak make sacrifice to them.”

  In his best rhetorical voice Poel recited the names and descriptions of the spirits of fire and water, of mountains and rivers, of rocks and trees, of field and grain, of the animals of the forest. Kazhak listened impassively to the long pantheon of influences pertaining to every human interaction with nature. It was only when Poel spoke of the deity to whom Kernunnos himself was dedicated that Kazhak reacted.

  “Stag, yes!” he cried, slamming his fist against his thigh. “Stag great animal, Kazhak respect stag. Hunting stag is good for man, make him fast, make him smart.

  “But stag is no god, is just animal. Meat.”

  Kernunnos, Priest of the Stag, glared at the Scythian with barely controlled fury. To deny the power of another tribe’s deity was an insult of the most contemptible kind. There were countless spirits with which mankind must retain good relations; spirits as different from one another as the races of humans that worshiped them, but every person who was not weak-minded respected the power of all gods and strove to offend none, since all life depended on their mercy.

  “You are ignorant!” Kernunnos said loudly, unable to control his tongue.

  Taranis almost choked on the wine he was swallowing at that moment. Before he could recover himself and try to undo the harm, Kazhak smoothed matters over on his own.

  The Scythian had taken no offense. His broad smile grew even broader, to include everyone in the lodge. He held up one forefinger and shook it at them like a parent reproving naughty children. “No no, Kazhak wise. Spend long nights on back, looking at stars. Stars make man very wise. Man has much time to think, looking at stars.”

  “Your words will drive the deer from these mountains and there will be no more venison for our cauldrons,” Sirona said, wringing her hands.

  “Kazhak not make stag angry,” the Scythian replied. “There be plenty deer here; this season, next season. Kazhak take bow and arrows, get you stag tomorrow, prove spirit not angry. Is it so?”

  There was a tense silence in the lodge. Confident and unperturbed, the Scythian continued to beam at the Kelti, and something of his own conviction began to infect his listeners. Okelos was the first to let the anger drain from his face and be replaced by an answering smile.

  Kernunnos hated his people for being so easily impressed.

  “You do not understand the nature of the animal spirits,” he told Kazhak in a frosty voice. “Perhaps your race has no shapechanger to speak to them in the tongue of the creatures. I pity you your poverty. Tell us, traveler: What do your kind worship that is of more importance to you than the very animals that nourish us?”

 
“Three gods,” said Kazhak, holding up three fingers. “Three only. Easy. Not so many to make angry. Tabiti, Papaeus, Api. Fire, Father, Earth.”

  “You hold nothing else sacred?”

  “Sacred.” Kazhak puzzled over the word, his lips moving silently. “Stronger than man, is that your meaning? The horse, that is stronger than man. War is stronger than man. So is friendship. Many men cannot destroy one friendship.”

  Kazhak paused to drain his cup and Kernunnos considered his words as the room buzzed with repetitions of them, one person to another, with varying degrees of outrage or amusement or undisguised interest. These Scythians were more ignorant than the chief priest had realized, but perhaps less dangerous than he had feared. They had no true knowledge of the realm of the spirits and therefore could not fight from there. The few gods they professed were familiar faces with new names, less than a handful among the countless aspects of the great fire of life whose rituals must be observed in order to maintain man’s precarious place in the balance of nature. With so little understanding the Scythians were no threat.

  Yet there were two objects of reverence named by Kazhak that disturbed the priest. Not tangibles one could influence or be influenced by, but abstractions, as insubstantial as smoke, as difficult to grasp as the art of the shapechanger.

  War.

  Friendship.

  What spirits were involved? How could they be dealt with? How could they be controlled?

  Kernunnos retreated into the dark places behind his yellow eyes and thought about these things.

  Chapter 10

  A woman came to the door to announce that the feast promised the Scythians was ready on the commonground. She intoned the familiar summons: “Soon the shadows of night will swallow the day, so let us build up our fires to hold back the darkness, let us sing songs with our friends, let us share our meat and our wine …”