“You and I are the same age, and have similar stories. When I was twelve, my encampment was burned, and I never knew if my family escaped, were captured, or were killed. I became a soldier, you became a concubine. So how did you and Antonius come to meet?”
So Marcia rehashed the whole story, leaving Luoyang at sixteen with the Gan Ying expedition, in tow behind Wang Ming, the trip to the Da Qin capital, the long sea voyage back and her freedom for a few months from Wang Ming, chatting with Antonius alongside the ship’s rail.” She took Antonius’ hand and squeezed it in both of hers. “He was painfully shy,” she said with a smile. “He didn’t know what to do with me, was always afraid he would insult me. He put me on a pedestal like a fine statue, far above his station. No one had ever made me feel like that.”
“So you became lovers then?”
“No, we didn’t become lovers until we were falsely accused of it, and I was accused of trying to kill Wang Ming, which was true. We made love for the first time in a filthy jail cell in the North Palace, sentenced to death, with my brother, Aulus and Gaius keeping watch so the guards didn’t notice. Antonius says making love in a yurt with nine others is almost as bad.” She laughed, and Antonius sort of harrumphed. If the light had been better, Hina would have noticed him blush.
“There certainly is no privacy in a yurt. I live with the nine men of my arban, myself.” Hina was enjoying this, but unsure how to deal with it. She had never been on close personal terms with any woman: most she intimidated, some she made jealous, and a few thought that with her mannishness, she was after them. She had never had a conversation with a woman or a man this intimate. These people seemed to just welcome her into all their secrets.
Marcia continued with the story of the jailbreak, Tongchuan and her near loss of Antonius. “It was in that cave, while the fight was raging, that I realized that if they lost, I would go back to what I had been. And I was helpless. I don’t ever want to be helpless again.”
“Well, you two have some very interesting stories to tell. More kumis, Antonius?”
He refilled her bowl, and she continued. “When I wanted to become a fighter, my trainer was asked if he could make a fighter out of me. He said no, but if I was a fighter, he could make me a better one. I would say the same about you. We will start tomorrow.”
Galosga came in to join them around the fire, along with Marcus, while the other six, made their pleasantries and headed for their bedrolls. Hina passed Galosga the sack of kumis. “You have some interesting friends, Galosga.”
“I do indeed, huldaji, I do indeed.”
Marcia offered a suggestion. “You are welcome to sleep here tonight, Hina. If we can keep it quiet here, I am sure you can too.” She giggled a bit and gave her a knowing glance.
“Let me tell my second where I am, and our plans for tomorrow, and I’ll be back. Try to stay awake till I get back, Galosga… and thank you, Marcia.”
The following morning, Hina awoke early to the warmth of Galosga beside her. He was lying on his side, facing away from her. She turned to snuggle her naked body spoon-fashion against his, caressing his broad chest; she kissed his shoulder. In all of her sexual escapades, she had never slept with a man, not even with Mayu. She wished she had time to rekindle the fires that had burned so bright last night, but everyone would be rising very soon to strike camp, and she needed to be with her arban. Yes, she did indeed seem to be taking a mate, for as long as she had him.
And this yurt brought back memories of a time when she was a child with a family. She was becoming very comfortable with all of these people, they were like family. She also feared that familiarity. No, not now, not yet. I am not ready for it.
Galosga grunted, and she kissed his shoulder again. “Time to get up. I have to look after my arban.”
“And we have to get up also.” He rolled her around and kissed her once last time on the mouth, a wet languorous kiss, holding her soft breast against his chest. “Till the next time, huldaji.”
CHAPTER 63: LEARNING TO FIGHT LIKE A WOMAN
Antonius and the two arban squads stayed behind as the encampment departed. They could easily catch up with the plodding migration after checking out the lian-yu weapons Bohai had surreptitiously delivered to them. They had set up some bails of hay as targets to assess their range and accuracy.
Target shooting was not an option, explained Antonius; the fletchless arrows reduced the accuracy, and the thigh-mounted firing position prevented aiming at anything other than the general direction for the arrow to fly. He loaded ten arrows into the top of the rear-hinged wooden magazine on top the stock of the weapons, pointed weapon in the general direction of the targets, and worked the magazine to arm, load and fire it in a single fluid motion. The mechanism released the arrow with a thunk, to fly in a high arc and land in the vicinity of one of the targets a hundred yards down range. Antonius then worked the action rapidly, firing the remaining nine arrows in about ten seconds. “That’s all there is to it,” he said, handing his weapon to Hina for her turn at firing.
Hina stepped forward, loaded under Antonius’ supervision, then fired off ten rounds.
“This is a nice weapon for the way the Hanaeans fight, Antonius. They drag thousands of peasants from their villages, put this in their hands and in a few weeks a line of them can lay down enough arrows that they have to hit something. This is the way we fight.” She took her bow from behind her back and ten arrows from her quiver, nocked one and drew her bow, holding the remaining arrows in her bow hand. She aimed high at the sky then brought it down to the aim and released it. The target visibly shuddered under the impact. She took another arrow, then another, until she had fired all of them. Not as fast as the lian-yu, but when the group came up to the target, the ten arrows were buried to their fleches in the straw; an open hand easily covered their impact points. The lian-yu arrows protruded from the ground around the target. None had hit.
“All we can do with this weapon would be to waste arrowheads, and arrowheads are precious.” She shook her head, and her arban agreed. “Let’s see if we can sell them to some Hanaean rebel warlord, he probably pay a fair price for these lian-yu.
The riders mounted up to surge after the migration. After their rendezvous, Hina went for an uneventful mid-morning patrol, returning in the afternoon to find Marcia, and the two rode off for their first training session.
They began with a bit of serious riding. Marcia was going to need more work than Galosga. As a concubine, she had ridden little, and lacked Galosga’s confidence with animals.
After a few miles, they dismounted, leaving the Mongolian ponies to tether themselves. The first order of business was conditioning, and they started with a hard run; a hard run for Marcia, that is, followed by strength exercises. The girl was in good condition, but she needed much more work to prepare herself for a long, drawn-out fight. Finally, they were ready for the first training bout. Marcia was breathing heavily, sweating slightly despite the fall chill.
Hina began with a lecture. “First, and foremost, you are a small girl. If there is any way for you to avoid a fight with a man, do so. If you decide to fight, be prepared to kill him. You must always be emotionally ready to do so.” Marcia nodded. “Now, for the best rule of fighting like a woman: there is a golden moment when a man will not take you seriously as a fighter because you are a woman. If you can kill him then, you will save yourself a lot of trouble. Usually, it comes at the beginning of the fight.”
Marcia nodded again.
“Always expect the unexpected. Are you pregnant now?” asked Hina.
Marcia was taken aback by the discontinuity. “No, I am not. Why…” She didn’t get to finish her question before Hina whirled and struck her full force in the belly, knocking the wind out of her and doubling her over. Marcia’s eyes squeezed shut in agony, arms around her midsection, struggling to draw a breath. After several seconds she wheezed in a gulp of air and painfully straightened up a bit. “You bitch!” she groaned. “What the hell did you
do that for?”
“Expect the unexpected. If you react like that in a fight, you will be a dead woman. We were trained to make our stomach muscles a solid shield for our guts. You will get that training. And you must expect, endure and even welcome pain in a fight. Let that pain light your anger, and let your reason focus that anger into white-hot fury to destroy your opponent.”
The rest of the afternoon, Hina and Marcia exchanged blows with their hands, as the smaller woman learned to evade and deflect blows. “Never take your eyes off your opponent’s eyes. His eyes will tell you where he will hit next. And your own eyes will never reveal your next intended strike. Your hand can find its target without you staring at it! Again!”
On the way back, Hina rode off with Marcia’s horse in tow behind Eagle, leaving Marcia to run after her, watching the galloping horses disappear into the distance. She had no idea how far she might have to run, but she would drop dead before admitting defeat. Fiercely angry with Hina, she struggled on, mile after mile, Let your pain light your anger, let your reason turn that anger to white hot fury… you bitch!
Finally she caught up with Hina, horses standing at ease drinking from a little rivulet. Hina smiled and tossed her a waterskin. “Don’t drink it all in one gulp, you’ll throw it up! And flop down for a few minutes, you’ve earned it. Playtime is over, you can relax!”
After about fifteen minutes and most of the waterskin, Marcia began to feel like she might survive the day. They mounted up and trotted leisurely back to camp.
“You did well today. You are tougher than you look, for a piece of palace fluff,” said Hina, mockingly.
“You bitch!” said Marcia, spitting out the words as she had down throughout the grueling day. Then she reconsidered; she had got about as good a compliment as she would get from Hina… that bitch… and she managed a weak smile. “Thank you. Does it get better?”
“No, it gets worse. Much worse. But you’ll do fine.”
“Will you be staying with us again tonight? You are welcome.”
“I would like to, but the men in my arban don’t get more than one night a week with their families, so I can’t allow myself more personal time than they.”
“Galosga will miss you.”
“And I him. And all of you.”
The training continued for about six weeks, several times a week, whenever Hina’s other duties permitted. Meanwhile the migration crawled the five hundred miles to the outskirts of Liqian, passing through the lush green hills of Bayan Nur and the outpost of Yinchuan on the way. Hina had not intended for the training to be as intense as it became for Marcia, but whatever she demanded of her, the slip of a girl rose to meet and exceed her expectations. At the end of several weeks, Marcia had not only mastered basic self-defense with hands, feet, teeth, club, knife and sword, but without realizing it, was moving on into serious combat. She mastered knife-fighting, Hina’s recommended fighting style for her because of her diminutive size. “A sword is useless if man rushes inside your reach and pins your arms to your side,” she explained. “But if your opponent uses a sword, you must also.”
Hina was impressed with her spunk and courage, and her willingness to reach higher and higher levels. She was also intrigued with the idea that this girl, so much smaller than Hina in strength and size, might yet become a credible fighter in her own right. So over the next several weeks, she expanded the regime.
Marcia learned to fight with both knife and sword together, to fight with either hand, and to change hands in mid-fight in case of injury. She learned archery, both standing and from horseback, and finally at last clinging to one side of the horse as a shield and shooting under the horse’s throat, hitting the target without falling off. The many preceding attempts at this tactic had not ended well, but each time Marcia got herself up out of the dirt, remounted and tried again. Not bad for a girl who, a few months earlier, had trouble staying upright in the saddle.
During each session, Hina ensured that Marcia hated her intensely, but at the end of each session, that mockery and fury evaporated, and they rode back, chatting idly.
Hina had never been around women much the past ten years, much less had a female friend. She found it comforting to be able to discuss “women’s things,” things no one had taught her, about how her body functioned and how to care for it.
She would deliver Marcia, exhausted, to her yurt after each session, where the girl promptly collapsed onto her bedroll, often too tired to even wash off the sweat of her exertions. If Hina were on her weekly visit, she would stay up and talk with the men.
Antonius was impressed by the depth of training she was giving Marcia, which went far beyond what he had expected, and it was showing up in his own training with the group; Marcia had just won her first training bout, against Yakov. They compared styles, finding that they both did much the same things to their new people, for the same reasons. Like Hina, he was curious how far Marcia would go, and like Hina, he was concerned she might someday put herself in a situation beyond her ability.
Hina also liked the other soldiers, the standoffish Gaius, the scholarly Demosthenes, and the rebellious bandit-turned-deckhand Shmuel. They all related to her on a soldierly level, and seemed to take no notice of her sex. They swapped stories, shared experiences, and laughed at each other’s outrageous jokes or stories.
Hina liked Aulus, with his stories of Rome, the Senate, politics, and business ventures that spanned vast oceans, though these were things beyond her comprehension. She had never been to a city, except passing by them in the distance on her travels. She had no idea what it might be like to live in one, or the splendid houses like he described.
She was also intrigued by the fatherly Ibrahim and his rascally adopted son Yakov, although she had never seen the sea and had only a vague idea what a ship might look like.
Finally, there was Marcus, shy quiet Marcus. She knew his carefully-guarded secret, having learned it from Marcia, a secret he shared with her dear dead Mayu.
She began to feel very warm inside, as something inside, long frozen, thawed. Yes, indeed, for now, she had a family in these people, and she would miss them very much when they went on their way. And thank you, Mayu, for helping me find them.
And of course, there was the ever-strange, ever-wonderful Galosga, the man whose name inexplicably meant, ‘he who fell’. He who fell from the stars into her life.
During one of those meetings, the men convinced Hina to introduce her “mate” to her other family, her arban. She had been reluctant to do so, but Antonius pointed out that they might consider Galosga a distraction to her, and therefore a threat, unless they met him.
So she took him around the arban the next day, expecting sniggers and jokes from her men, aged between fifteen and eighteen. But Galosga was a giant among these men, fully six feet tall like Hina, broad-shouldered and well-muscled.
Hadyu greeted him with a big smile, clasping Galosga’s shoulders with both hands. “Welcome! So you are the Mongol who finally tamed the Tiger Lady! Tell us how you did it.”
Galosga returned the shoulder clasp with a laugh. “The man has not been born that can tame the huldaji. She is as wild as ever!”
That got it off to good start. The men were as intrigued with him and his stories as she had been. She showed them the stone arrowhead and they shook their heads in amazement.
While her men gathered around her new mate, her zuun commander walked up. Would he be displeased with this relationship?
“So this is your mate, Hina?”
Hina tried to look defiantly into his emotionless, cold eyes.
“He is.”
The commander’s brown eyes crinkled a bit around the edges in his leather face, as just the barest of smiles crossed his lips. “It’s about time, Hina. We are glad to see this.”
“Really?” she answered, puzzled.
“Hina, you have been like a bow with a bowstring an inch too short. Such a bow looks fine, but you never know when it will snap or shatter when you
draw it. We have watched you become a fine fighter, but we all have been concerned that you were too tightly strung… since Mayu. It looks like this man has done a fine job of restringing your bow.”
“Yes, he has, and the other Da Qin…they have become like family to me.”
“Everyone needs family, a place to unstring their bow completely. What will you do when they leave?”
“I’ll find another mate, another family… I think I am ready for that now,” she said. Galosga and the Da Qin would be hard to replace.
“Good… by the way, you have had that arban too long, and it’s time to move Hadyu up to command it. There are some zuuns coming open, and your name has been mentioned to the shanyu. No promises, though.”
She smiled broadly, for the first time in years. “Yes, sir!”
The migration traded in Bayan Nur, then south to Yinchuan for more trading, where they sold the twenty contraband lian-yu for a dozen silver coins, which they promptly melted down for jewelry. They traded animals, wool and leather goods for wood, precious on the treeless steppes, jewelry, iron, both finished products and raw metal ready for smelting, tools and occasionally contraband. Occasionally, someone picked up a bride for a son, or gave away a daughter, as marriages within the clan were frowned upon.
The Xiongnu believed the best fighters became possessed by the spirit of a particular animal persona unique to them that gave them its characteristics. Hina’s persona was the steppe tiger, long, lean and powerful. When she got into her battle crouch, knees flexed, back slightly bent, arms extended with sword in one hand, dagger in the other, she looked the part, stalking, side-stepping slowly, about to spring on its prey, green eyes glowing with a predatory light.
Marcia sought her persona. She recalled a big feral cat that had invaded the concubinage. She had laughed as Marcus and the other eunuchs struggled to evict the unwilling cat. The animal puffed itself up as big as it could get, hissing angrily through its open mouth, baring its fangs. It raked the first man to reach for it, leaving four bleeding scratch marks across his forearms. The last man had gotten too close to the angry animal, and a furry bundle of squawling, spitting fury launched itself onto his face, then departed the concubinage in a high-speed zig-zag. Yes, that would be her persona. And when she got into her battle crouch against Hina, an angry hiss and growl came from her mouth. Unlike Hina, her dagger and sword played back and forth, constantly seeking a target. Yes, she was ready to leave her clawmarks on any man who challenged her.
The Eagle and the Dragon, a Novel of Rome and China Page 49
