the Year the Horses came

by Mary Mackey

  "They did what?" Marrah leapt to her feet, almost knocking over the dung basket. By rights her cries should have brought Timak out in full force, but as soon as Arang appeared, Timak went away, so for the first time since Vlahan had carried her off, she was able to rave and curse to her heart's content. "They mutilated you!"

  Arang stared at her wide-eyed, impressed by the level of her anger. "I think they do it to all boys."

  "That's insane!"

  "But they do. I know because Zuhan pulled down his leggings to show me his penis, and then the other men did the same. They even brought in a little boy for me to look at."

  "That does it! You're coming with me right now!" She took him by the hand and pulled him to his feet. "I'm going to put something soothing on all your wounds, and I do mean all of them." She led him toward the tall grass at the edge of the camp, and to her relief no one stopped them. Trampling down a space big enough to accommodate them both, she told him to sit down so he couldn't be seen and to warn her if he heard anyone coming. Then she opened her medicine bag, took out a packet of barberry leaves, and began to chew them until they were soft. She would much rather have pounded them with water since they were terribly bitter, but until she somehow managed to make herself a mortar and pestle, she was going to have to rely on her own teeth. When the leaves were a soft mush, she smeared a thumbful on Arang's cheeks. The rest she laid out carefully on a thin strip of clean linen.

  "Off with your leggings," she ordered. Like anyone raised among the Shore People, Arang felt as comfortable naked as clothed. He pulled down his leggings.

  "Oh, Arang, that looks terrible!" She knelt to wrap the poultice around his wound, but before she could touch him he gave a cry of warning and backed away. At the same instant a hand grabbed her wrist and jerked her sideways. She fell, dropping the poultice. When she looked up, she found herself staring straight into a pair of cold, green eyes. The eyes belonged to Changar, and he was furious.

  He motioned for Arang to pull up his leggings. Then he turned on Marrah and gave her a hard slap across the face. She had already learned that it was useless to fight back, and evidently Arang had learned the same thing. He didn't make a sound. He just sat there looking terrified as Changar reached down and jerked her medicine bag off her belt.

  Changar opened the bag, inspected the contents, and gave a grunt of displeasure. He dumped everything on the ground, knelt, and began to paw through it, ripping open packets of precious herbs and powdered roots. As Marrah looked on helplessly, the bittersweet smell of dozens of irreplaceable medicines filled the air. Changar opened the dried thunder, inspected the small clay balls, and bit into one of them. Whatever was inside must have tasted bad because he made a terrible face and spit out a wad of black phlegm. He closed the pouch and shoved it in his pocket. The powder of invisibility made him sneeze, but he kept that too, looking at Marrah suspiciously as he stowed it in his own medicine bag.

  When he had finished taking what he wanted and destroying the rest, he stood up with a rattle of wolf tooth necklaces. Holding the empty medicine bag in front of Marrah's face, he said one of the few words of Hansi she knew in a low, ominous voice that sent chills up her spine. The word was nech; it meant "never." The diviner pointed in the direction of Vlahan's tent, indicating that they should return at once. Then he turned and left as silently as he had come, taking Marrah's empty bag with him.

  "You're lucky you only got slapped," Dalish said the next morning when she came to Vlahan's tent to console Marrah. "And you're doubly lucky they think Arang's only a boy. Otherwise if Changar had found him with his pants down and you kneeling over him, you'd be dead."

  "But the charms the priestesses of Nar gave me are gone, and all my medicines with them. What will I do if someone gets sick? I can't gather new ones; I've hardly been able to recognize a single plant since we left the forest."

  Dalish frowned and looked around to make sure Timak was nowhere in sight. Even though they were talking in Shambah, she always acted as if they might be overheard. "Instead of worrying about charms and sickness, you should thank the Goddess that Changar had enough sense to see you were trying to heal Arang and enough generosity — if you can call it that — to make some allowances for the fact that you couldn't possibly know that he's the only one around here allowed to cure anything. If you'd been a Hansi woman he wouldn't have just slapped you; he would have kicked out your teeth or maybe even had you strangled."

  She patted Marrah's knee sympathetically. "I know you've been through all sorts of horrors in the last two days, but try to look on the bright side. I came to tell you some good news. Zuhan wants Arang to have a translator until he learns Hansi, so Slehan's given me to him." She smiled. "I like the idea of being Zuhan's concubine. He's so old I doubt he can do much more than gum my breasts. Zulike could make my life unpleasant, but under the circumstances I don't think she'll bother. So I'm here to stay."

  She took Marrah's hand, hiding it carefully under the edge of her shawl. "Now tell me what's happened since the last time I saw you. I know what Hansi wedding nights are like. Did Vlahan hurt you? You may have lost your medicines, but I have a few things that can soothe the worst of it. There's a special plant called 'bridesheal' that all the Hansi women use. It's strictly forbidden, of course, but Changar hates to have anything to do with women's illnesses so he pretends not to notice."

  Encouraged by her sympathy, Marrah began to describe how Vlahan had grabbed her after the ceremony, but when she came to the part about Stavan, Dalish silenced her by putting a finger over her lips, and when she spoke there was no sympathy in her voice. "If you ever say that name out loud again, I'm going to get up, walk away, and only speak to you when Zuhan forces me to translate. Are you out of your mind? You said you saw this lover of yours, but how much did you see of him? I've been talking to the other concubines, and they've told me all about Zuhan's crazy son. He wanders around barefoot with straw in his hair, he won't mount a horse or look at a woman, and whenever Zuhan takes pity on him and invites him to some public ceremony, he spends the whole time babbling to himself."

  She smiled bitterly. "I know you've been secretly hoping he'll save you, but the poor fool can't even save himself. He sleeps with the horses, and sometimes when the women come out to milk the mares they find him trying to eat dry grass. Give up on him. I'm telling you this as a friend. He's the last person you can rely on."

  A week passed and then another. Every night Vlahan forced Marrah to have sex with him, but the tent was no longer empty. Now Timak and Hiknak lay nearby, listening to her protests and his orders. Although Marrah had hoped Arang would come to live with her, she was grateful Zuhan had insisted on taking him into his own tent. Arang didn't get along well with Zulike — who could? — but she wasn't allowed to torment him the way Timak tormented Marrah, and besides Arang was only there at night. During the day, Zuhan's warriors took him out to the steppes to teach him how to ride and hunt like a man.

  Sometimes several days would pass before he could find time to visit her. When he did show up, it was a holiday of sorts. Timak and Hiknak would make themselves scarce, and Marrah would have time to sit down and hear what Arang had been doing. Mostly he was learning to throw a spear and shoot arrows from a galloping horse, which was, he told her, his idea of what the Hansi hell must be like.

  "I like shooting a bow when I have both feet on the ground, but when I'm on the back of one of those cursed beasts, I can't aim straight and I nearly fall off every time. What I'm really afraid of is that Vlahan and the others are going to take me on a raid some day and I'll be expected to kill someone."

  Sometimes, they would walk out to the edge of the camp into the tall grass, and if they were sure that neither Changar nor anyone else was around, Arang would lay his head in her lap and she would stroke his hair. Once or twice they even sang Sabalah's song together in low voices, and when they were finished their eyes were wet with tears.

  But as the days passed, Arang seemed to grow more distant. Once h
e showed up with a bruise on his forehead, and when Marrah asked how he got it, he refused to tell her. When she persisted, he snapped at her. "I thought it might be a nice idea to dance for Zuhan, but Zuhan didn't like my style. My best backflips and most graceful steps horrified him, and when I was done, he had one of his warriors beat me. Now are you satisfied?"

  Another time she asked him if he ever saw Stavan, and he gave her a bitter smile. "Oh, yes, I see my dear aita all the time, and if Timak ever let you walk out to where they keep the horses you'd see him too. He lives with the herds. He doesn't seem to recognize me or anyone else. I don't know what happened to him, but I think he's lost his mind. The warriors are all afraid of him; they say he's votok." And when Marrah asked what that meant, he explained the men feared Stavan was possessed by demons.

  He was learning Hansi fast — much faster than Marrah — and he was learning other things too. One morning Timak pushed back the tent flap and stuck her head out to shout at Marrah just as Arang was walking up. Breaking into a run, he yelled something at her in Hansi, and Timak froze in mid-sentence and ducked back inside. When he came up to Marrah, he had a big grin on his face.

  "I guess that took care of her." He settled down comfortably on an overturned basket. "I doubt she'll bother us anymore this morning."

  "What did you say?"

  "I told her if she didn't go inside and leave you alone, I'd beat her."

  "Arang, you didn't! Why she's old enough to be a village mother. How could you be so disrespectful?"

  "She's just a mean old woman." Arang shrugged. "And not pretty either. Zuhan told me I can order any woman I want around, even Zulike." He looked at her thoughtfully. "Even you."

  "You just try and see how far it gets you, you little brat." She had to get him out of here before Zuhan made him into a Hansi warrior. His gentle nature was being twisted. He was fighting it, but he was only twelve. How long could she expect him to resist?

  After Arang yelled at Timak, she treated Marrah with more respect. Now, instead of slapping her and pushing her out the door to collect dung, she handed the basket to her, grumbling in a low voice. Sometimes she sent her for water or to gather wild greens and roots. On one or two occasions she even let her help Hiknak milk the cows and mares or cook Vlahan's dinner, which was no easy process. Since the nomads rarely used pottery, they either roasted meat directly over the fire or boiled up a kind of stew by tossing hot rocks in a lined basket or skin bag. If the rocks were too hot, they were apt to split when they hit the liquid, scalding the cook and burning through the basket; on the other hand, if they were too cold, they sunk to the bottom without warming the stew. Marrah's first attempt was almost solid rocks, but instead of slapping her, Timak merely muttered a curse, emptied the broth into a new basket, and began all over again.

  Vlahan was particularly fond of the fat, micelike voles that fed on the wild grasses, and after she failed so miserably at boiling stew, Marrah was assigned the task of gutting the little animals, singeing off their hair in the flames, and putting them in a small pit to bake. The Hansi ate other strange things: grubs, snakes, lizards, and — as Dalish had promised — grasshoppers. But mostly they ate beef, horse meat, cheese, wild-grass-seed porridge, and a kind of pudding made from milk and blood.

  She was so busy that sometimes she forgot to worry, but all she had to do was look up and read the hatred in Timak's eyes to know she was bound to a lifetime of drudgery and abuse unless she managed to escape. Still, as time passed, her life improved a little. She suspected Arang had threatened Timak again, because suddenly, after days of watching her, Timak let her go out alone to gather dung. It was a relief to walk into the tall grass and sit where no prying eyes could follow. On the steppes she was free to dream of home and forget, at least for a while, the horrors of Vlahan's bed.

  The only bad thing about her new freedom was that as she passed through the camp she often saw Stavan. The first time this happened, she was so excited she started to speak to him, but he kept on walking and looked right through her as if he'd never seen her before. The next time their paths crossed, he was sitting in the shade playing with a bit of horsehair and babbling to himself like an idiot. It grieved her terribly to think he had actually lost his mind, but it seemed to be true. After a few more unpleasant encounters, she hurried in the opposite direction whenever she saw him coming. Dalish was right. Whatever there had been between them was over, and it was both foolish and dangerous to try to get him to recognize her.

  Then, on a day in early autumn when the steppes had turned gold and the night had been cold enough to leave a rim of frost on the ground, she was sitting among the tall grasses thinking of home when suddenly the stalks parted and Stavan himself stood before her. He was barefoot, with straw in his hair, wearing a torn tunic and a necklace of thorns, but his eyes were as clear and sane as any she'd ever seen.

  Falling to his knees, he clasped his hand over her mouth to keep her from crying out in surprise. "Hush," he whispered. "We don't have much time. I have to tell you something. I'm — " He stopped in mid-sentence, and Marrah heard the sound of Hiknak and another woman approaching. Before she had time to be frightened, he had disappeared, sliding off into the dry grass so swiftly and quietly that by the time the two women were in sight there wasn't so much as a moving blade to give him away. She snatched up her basket, rose to her feet, yelled out a greeting in broken Hansi, and pretended to be busy looking for dung, but she was so excited she couldn't do much more than wander in circles, stopping every once in a while to crouch down and wait in case Stavan wanted to find her again. But he must have thought it was too dangerous, because there was no further sign of him.

  She got a good scolding from Timak when she came back to the tent with a half empty basket, but for once she didn't care. Stavan had only said a few words to her, but she knew beyond a doubt that he was no more crazy than she was.

  That evening Arang came to visit her. The warriors had had him out on the steppes all day, riding and shooting at targets until he could hardly stand up. His fingers were bruised and he was covered with gray dust, but when she told him about Stavan he threw back his head and laughed.

  "He's not crazy?"

  "No."

  "Then he'll help us escape! Hurrah!" He pounced on her and gave her a hug. "No more nomads, no more spears, no more horses! How I've detested being trained as a warrior! How I've hated it!" They danced around, laughing so hard Timak glared at them suspiciously, but what did they care? Soon she'd be nothing but a bad memory.

  That night not even Vlahan could make Marrah cry. As he lay on top of her, she watched him coldly from a great distance. He might own her body, but her soul was out on the steppes with Stavan, riding west toward Shara.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  She woke the next morning, sure Stavan would come to her as soon as she walked into the safety of the tall grass, but she never had an opportunity to stray more than fifty paces away from Vlahan's tent. Timak was as ill-tempered as a sick goat. The moment she rose from her pallet, she began barking orders, shoving poor Hiknak when she didn't move fast enough and following Marrah outside to make sure she didn't waste any more time peeing than was absolutely necessary. Handing both younger women a cold breakfast of leftovers, she ordered them to eat it quickly and start folding up the blankets and packing the leather saddlebags. They were breaking camp, she informed them, and she had no intention of ending up at the end of the line eating everyone else's dust just because they were a pair of lazy sluts.

  In less time than Marrah could have believed possible, the stakes were pulled up, the tent was down, and the poles and hides had been converted into a sledge. Soon everything Vlahan owned was neatly packed away, the cooking fire was doused, and Timak was standing with her hands on her hips looking impatiently in the direction of the herds. If Vlahan didn't come back with the horses soon, they were going to be one of the last households to leave. He was an unreliable, lazy bastard, but if either Marrah or Hiknak ever told Vlahan she'd said
any such thing, she'd tear out both their livers.

  Hiknak grinned shyly at Marrah behind Timak's back, and for the first time Marrah felt a bond of sympathy with the little concubine. Obviously Hiknak was pleased to hear Timak curse Vlahan. Timak was right; they were going to be late. All over the camp women and children were feverishly taking down tents and packing bundles. Some of the sledges were already hitched to horses, and Zuhan had mounted a white gelding and was about to give the marching command. Arang sat beside him on a smaller horse, not the gray one he'd ridden from Shambah but a fine, glossy-coated beast the color of honey. Marrah waved when she saw him and he waved back, but they didn't have a chance to speak to each other, which was a pity. She wanted to talk to him some more about Stavan, but Zuhan was keeping Arang very close these days. Unless Arang came to her, she couldn't get anywhere near him, since women were forbidden to approach members of the Great Chief's household without their husband's permission.

  Changar sat next to Arang, mounted on a black stallion, looking at everything with a cold, imperious gaze. Stavan was nowhere in sight, which was just as well as far as Marrah was concerned, since she wasn't sure she could have so much as looked in his direction without Timak — or, worse yet, Changar — suspecting something.

  Timak continued to fume and sputter until Vlahan appeared with four horses. He handed them over to her without a word of apology and galloped back toward the herd to help round up the cattle. Timak hitched one horse to the sledge and ordered Marrah and Hiknak to bridle the others. She had a nasty temper, but she was a fast, competent worker, and as Marrah tried to follow her directions, she felt a grudging admiration for her. These nomad women might scurry around like frightened mice when their men gave an order, but they were strong as bulls, and when it came to getting a bit into the mouth of a nervous horse without getting kicked, no one could match them.