The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn)

by Llywelyn, Morgan

  After a time, she smiled and returned to her horse.

  When she heard the sentry’s voice challenging her, at first she did not recognize it as that of Vallanos. Both the voice and the accent were unfamiliar. Then the words formed themselves into patterns she recognized and she knew all at once, and truly, that she was home.

  “Vallanos! It is I, Epona! Daughter of Rigantona!” She kicked the gray horse into a trot and hurried forward.

  Vallanos came scrambling down from his customary rocky perch, sword in hand. He did not see Epona of the Kelti; he saw a beardless Scythian horseman, and this time he was ready. He had almost reached the gray stallion’s side before he got a good look at the blue eyes laughing down at him, and then he halted in confusion.

  “Epona? Is that really you?”

  “Yes, Vallanos. Don’t you know me?”

  “No one would know you, dressed like that. Where did you come from? Where have you been, what’s happened …”

  “All in good time, Vallanos. I suppose I should speak to the elders first, and Taranis.”

  “Yes, they will want to see you, all right. You will have much to explain.” He broke off, staring in wonder at the string of mares, and Dasadas, waiting with them. “Is that a Scythian, that man with you?”

  “Yes, Vallanos. He is my … friend. If it were not for Dasadas, I would never have found my way back to you. I want him treated with all the hospitality of the Kelti, and I want the gutuiters to see him soon, for he was badly wounded and the wound has never properly healed. He needs their care.”

  “Nematona has died since you left, Epona,” Vallanos said sadly.

  “Nematona?” She could not believe it. “What happened?”

  “She said it was her time. She lay down in the sacred grove and did not wake up again.”

  Daughter of the Trees. A slim brown shape moved among the trunks, rustling with the leaves, and vanished into them forever. Part of the whole.

  Epona closed her eyes and bowed her head.

  “You wait here, Epona,” Vallanos told her, “and I will go and announce your arrival in the village. Everyone will want to come out to greet you … this is such an occasion! … wait right here, don’t go away …” He ran off, already breathless with the news, and Epona and Dasadas exchanged amused glances.

  “You are welcomed here,” said the Scythian.

  “And you, as much as I. I owe you a great debt, Dasadas.”

  The Scythian was slumped low in his saddle. “There is nothing you can do for Dasadas, Epona.”

  “You are mistaken. We will make you well, here; you will be strong again, and you will be honored among my people.”

  “Is not important.” His eyes were almost lost in their darksockets and she saw how dreadfully thin he was; how much of his own life he had spent for her sake.

  And in thislife there was nothing she could do to make it up to him.

  Vallanos returned, aglow with delight, to lead them triumphantly into the village himself. He told Epona that news of their arrival had thrown the community into an uproar; a feasting fire was even now being prepared, oxen were being slaughtered, runners had been sent for Mahka and the warriors.

  “Mahka and the warriors?”

  “Okelos has put together a band of trained fighters and allowed Mahka to join them. They have built two-wheeled carts for battle and they practice each day on that small strip of level land across the lake. They plan to leave the Blue Mountains soon, in search of new land and more room for our tribe.”

  Epona looked at her string of horses and smiled. “There are faster, easier ways to travel than in a cart, Vallanos,” she said. “Though I suppose these Thracian wagon mares could speed a light cart along very fast, with a pair of armed warriors whipping them on.”

  Following the strutting Vallanos, she and Dasadas rode down to the village beside the lake.

  The lake was as intensely blue-green as she remembered it. The embracing mountains were as steep, as furred with pine. But the village itself had changed.

  Many of the lodges boasted heads on poles, either real skulls or carved wooden heads mounted until the genuine article could be obtained. Men walked about in trousers of tartan wool, modeled on the Scythian garment. Curving animals similar to those represented in Scythian decoration were carved on the sides of wagons; sculptured in bronze and affixed to the rims of cauldrons; painted on the row of shields leaning against the sides of every lodge.

  There was a heady tension in the air; the tension of people bursting with energy, on the move. The village no longer felt like a placid, prosperous community, nestled in its mountains and waiting for the world to come to its gates. It was exploding like a fire when fat pine knots are thrown into it, sparks flying out in every direction. Epona had been gone only a few seasons, but in that time the Kelti had begun thinking in new ways and looking in new directions.

  The village was an exciting place to be in; she could feel it. The energy was not random now, spending itself in games. It was directed like an arrow nocked to a bowstring, ready to be shot outward.

  Epona leaned down from the saddle. “What caused this, Vallanos?”

  “Your leaving, partly. Everyone thought the Scythians had stolen you, and Okelos got support from the other young men to prepare a war party and go after you, but then bad weather came early and they could not leave. They fretted here, and complained of being trapped in these mountains. A small band of Taurisci came after snowmelt, looking for trouble, and Okelos killed their leader in a quarrel and mounted his head on a pole. The other men liked the idea. They already had their women making two-legged skirts for them to wear; they say the garment is more convenient in the mines. Once things began to change, it happened faster and faster. Traders came and were … made nervous … by what they saw here, they bartered quickly and left, giving us more for less. Taranis was pleased, and he encouraged the young men in their aggressive behavior.

  “Now there is much talk of fighting, and we all look forward to it. I may go myself.”

  “Is the tribe pleased with these changes?”

  “Not everyone. Kernunnos has been very upset; very strange. Some say he is mad. He stays in his lodge almost all the time now, and when anyone tries to talk to him he is lying on his bedshelf in such a deep sleep he cannot be wakened. But he is not dead—just away, in otherworlds. But we do not need him as much as we once did. Since we started putting up the heads, there has been abundant game—the heads must be as powerful magic as that of the shapechanger!”

  Oh, no, Vallanos, Epona thought to herself. There is nothing to equal the magic of the shapechanger. Perhaps, if the spirits will it, there is still time for me to learn from him. Perhaps he will forgive me.

  They entered the open gates, riding through the wooden palisade, the string of mares in tow. People came running toward them from every side, calling Epona’s name. The mares spooked and snorted at the onrush of humanity, but the gray stallion stood firm, and the horse of Dasadas followed his example.

  Taranis emerged from his lodge and strode toward Epona, a smile spread across his face like melted marrow spread across bread for seasoning. “Sunshine on your head,” he greeted her, and she had to search her memory for the appropriate response. There were so many other words in the way … so many other things had been said …

  Sirona, her newest baby clinging to her legs and rubbing sleepy eyes with a grubby fist, came forward, and welcomed Epona as warmly as if she had not been Rigantona’s daughter. Others crowded after her, eager to touch Epona and assure themselves it was really she. Eager to get a look at the horses she had brought, the wonderful, towering horses, the breeding stock.

  “I have learned how to train horses to accept men-on their backs,” Epona told Taranis, and she saw excitement leap in the chief’s eyes.

  The elders, their numbers slightly diminished by transition, came hurrying, anxious for an accounting of Epona’s nights, but Taranis suggested that might wait until they were all seated comfo
rtably around the feasting fire, with Epona in the place of honor. “First we will prepare heated water for you to bathe, of course,” he reassured her, “and you will want to see your mother.”

  Epona’s face was calm beneath its layers of sun-and windburn. “I am in no hurry to see Rigantona,” she said.

  There was a flurry of discussion as to what was to be done with her, but the elders ultimately decreed she should be given the guest lodge—and Dasadas with her, if he so desired. But he nodded his head in negation.

  “Dasadas will sleep outside with horses, Epona; guard you.”

  “I need no guard now, Dasadas. I am home.”

  “Outside,” the Scythian repeated. He looked so thin and drawn, so gutted by his inner fires. She longed to welcome him into the lodge with her, to bathe his damaged body in heated water and comfort it with red wine, but he would have none of it. He followed, leading the mares, as she rode the gray stallion toward the guesting lodge, and the Kelti trotted at their heels, touching the horses admiringly, chattering among themselves about this miracle.

  A lone figure came across the commonground, wrapped in fury. No one noticed him; all attention was fixed on the new arrivals. Kernunnos, awakened from his sleep by the shouting, since even the gutuiters had learned not to bother him, no matter what the news, followed the disruptive noise toward its source, vibrating with anger at being disturbed. He saw … two Scythians! … mounted on horseback, fully armed, once again invading the village of the Kelti!

  It was not to be borne. His mind still clouded from the mists of the otherworlds, the priest ran forward, pulling his knife from his belt. He shoved through the astonished crowd and hurled himself with all his strength at the nearest mounted figure, dragging it from the horse. The Scythian fell heavily to the earth with surprisingly little resistance, as if too weakened to fight back, and Kernunnos plunged his knife into the nomad’s heart again and again, screaming in insane triumph.

  It happened too fast, Epona did not realize Dasadas was being attacked until it was over and he lay dead on the ground, gray eyes staring sightlessly upward. Something gave way in her brain then, and she shrieked her own command at the gray stallion. The war command, ingrained in the animal’s disciplined spirit by Kazhak’s thorough training.

  Kernunnos felt the chill of a shadow looming over him and looked up just in time to see the horse rise above him, hooves pawing the air. Then the mighty legs descended and the gray stallion stamped him into the earth mother.

  Trumpeting his own battle cry, the horse tore his opponent to bloody pieces, rearing and striking again and again until at last Epona recovered herself and reined him aside, where he stood trembling.

  The Kelti stared down at the trampled, bloody form of the shapechanger, lying next to the man he had killed. In his final battle Dasadas had succeeded in driving an iron knife made at a Kelti forge into Kernunnos’ body, a knife the Scyth had carried to the Sea of Grass and back again. But it was the hooves of the horse that had rendered the priest little more than remnants of bloody flesh and splintered bone.

  Only his face had escaped the horse’s attack. The yellow eyes were closed, their light extinguished. On one side of his head a hideous mass of twisted scar tissue pulled his face into a grimace, a permanent snarl extending almost to the place where an ear should have been.

  Sickened, Epona slid down from her stallion and threw herself onto the bosom of the earth mother.

  A hand touched her shoulder but she pulled away from it. The insistent touch was repeated, and she looked up to see Tena, She Who Summons Fire, standing beside her with old Poel.

  “Is this really Epona?” Tena asked, bending forward to peer into her face.

  “It was Epona,” she answered, sitting up wearily. “A long time ago, when I left the Blue Mountains, this was Epona. Now I hardly know who it is.”

  “It is the chief priest of the Kelti,” Poel announced.

  Chapter 32

  His words made no sense to her. They were like rain beating against her ears; she did not understand the language. Tena and Uiska stood on either side of her, supporting her gently, murmuring to her, and the faces of the Kelti watched them, and she understood none of it. She got up, slowly.

  Kernunnos lay dead at her feet. And Dasadas … oh, Dasadas!

  She looked around with uncomprehending eyes. “Kazhak?” she asked in a small voice, and the watching Kelti muttered in surprise to one another.

  Rigantona pushed through the crowd. “My child!” she cried, flinging her arms wide to welcome Epona, but the young woman drew back.

  “I am not a child,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “And I am not yours.” Then she understood her mother’s anxiety to establish a warm relationship..

  “I am told”—she said in a voice that threatened to desert her altogether at any time—“that I am … the chief priest.”

  “It is truly said,” Tena agreed. “You are drui, and you have slain your predecessor. The honor and the responsibility are yours now, Epona. It has never come to a woman of the Kelti before.”

  The words still had little meaning, but she could see how much they meant to Rigantona. She could see the woman all ready to embrace her, overflowing with newly discovered maternal fondness and pride. She took a step backward and felt the solidity of the gray stallion behind her. His shoulder was a wall to which she could set her back, and feel safe.

  “Go away, Rigantona,” she said with infinite weariness. “Go to your house and count your treasures. I am not one of them.”

  The Kelti were growing insistent, and she let them do what they would with her. The bath in heated water, scented with perfumed oils from luxury-loving Etruria. Her kin standing around, anxious to serve her in any way she might suggest. Food and wine. Songs of thanksgiving to the spirits for her return, and a visit to see the horses, now securely penned and surrounded by admirers, and Epona must relate again and again the difficulties she had encountered in bringing them.

  The young men were the most vocal, begging her to begin at once, teaching them how to ride.

  “These are Thracian wagon mares, not saddle animals,” she said. “But their foals can be trained in the way I have learned. There will be time enough then for you to sit atop a horse, and feel the wind on your teeth.”

  The feasting fire, and the ceremonial cup. It came first to her, now, even before Taranis and the elders. The value of the horses, and the knowledge she carried within herself, set her apart from all others.

  Different. And I did not want to be different.

  But in that you have no choice, said the spirit within. This is the pattern, Epona.

  Yes.

  The story had to be told, and then her kin retold it to each other, embroidering it as they went along, making it as colorful and wild as the predators savaging their prey on the felt medallions that hung from Epona’s saddlecloth.

  Kazhak would laugh if he could hear them, she thought.

  The feasting fire burned bright and hot.

  Goibban came to her. Beautiful, golden Goibban, his muscles rippling, his teeth gleaming white within his beard. “Epona,” he said, and laid some elaborate piece of bronzework at her feet, but she never looked at it. She tilted her head back and looked up at the stars, which were so much more beautiful.

  Sometime before dawn she slept in the guest lodge, and on the next day she requested that a burial ceremony be prepared for Dasadas the Scythian. The Kelti listened with wide, round eyes as she described the cart upon which his body was to be laid. “Take him to every house,” she instructed, “and let every family gather around his body and drink a last cup with him. And I want to hear crying.”

  “Crying … for the transition of a spirit?”

  “Crying. If the men cannot do it, let the women wail aloud, but there must be crying and tearing of hair for Dasadas the Scythian.”

  It was wonderful, the way the people hurried to do her bidding. But she would not take advantage of them. She remembered Tsaygas and Mitk
ezh, abusing their power, working for themselves rather than the tribe.

  Their punishment would come, in thisworld or the next. At least she had that consolation. That certain knowledge. As she had other knowledge and other certainties, for with the assumption of the mantle of chief priest a kind of peace had come to Epona. She no longer questioned, and the old recklessness seemed to have burned away. She had so much to learn, but she had the patience now to listen, and be taught. And, as had been promised, she could see the pattern. See it changing, for better or worse, and understand her part in that changing.

  She no longer fought, for there was nothing to fight— except the loneliness of the night, and the emptiness of her bedshelf. She was not a gutuiter, she was chief priest, and if she had wished for a partner she could have taken one to warm her bed and body. But she did not. Goibban came often, with little gifts, and she smiled at him and accepted them to avoid hurting his feelings, then set them aside and never looked at them again.

  Behind Goibban’s eyes, there was no one she knew.

  The mares were bred, and Uiska prophesied they were all safely in foal. There was much excited talk of the horses to come, both from the Thracian stock and from the cross of the bay and gray Scythian horses on the little cartponies. Epona rode the stallion every day, alone, following wherever the trails led, and thought her own thoughts.

  Sunseason flooded the mountains with clear white light, then softened into diffused gold, signaling the approach of the festival of the great fire.

  Goibban met Epona just inside the palisade gate as she returned from a ride. The smith held out his latest offering, a diadem of interlaced gold wires set with blue stones for which he had traded many iron farm implements to the Illyrians.

  Epona dismounted and accepted his gift graciously, though her eyes did not linger on it as Goibban had hoped they would. “Your spirit is generous,” she said, starting to turn away. Then she paused. His heart leaped with hope.

  She lifted her head, and her eyes filled with such radiance it hurt Goibban to look at them. It was like staring into the sunrise over the eastern mountains. But she was not looking at him. Her gaze went past him, to the palisade and the road beyond, and her face wore the intense expression of one who listens. She cocked her head slightly, a smile playing at the edges of her mouth.