Shannivar

by Deborah J. Ross

  “And a good thing that is, too, or none would take these for husbands.”

  “They’ll be a week deciding anything.” His friend sounded glum. “Meanwhile, work will not wait.” He meant the preparations for the khural, the gathering, as well as ongoing care of the herds, milking the mares and she-goats, making cheese and fermenting k’th, mending harness, and reaping the summer’s bounty of wild barley to see them through the winter.

  The group broke up and the older men went about their business. One of the younger men remained behind with Shannivar. She knew Rhuzenjin son of Semador only slightly. They had not grown up together, for he had come lately to the clan when his mother, a widow of the Rabbit totem, married one of the older men. Rhuzenjin was a good archer and an even better wrestler, sturdily built, with powerful shoulders and quiet hands on the reins.

  “Shannivar daughter of Ardellis, I would speak with you,” he said, gaze lowered.

  A moment of heightened awareness swept over Shannivar. She had never before noticed how smooth his skin was, how his thin moustache bracketed his sensitive mouth, the arch of his cheekbones, or his glossy dark eyes.

  Before Shannivar could respond, Kendira daughter of Zomarre approached them. “Rhuzenjin, Shannivar, may Tabilit bless your horses with speed. Will you want any more tea?” As the wife of Alsanobal, Kendira carried a certain status, but she had been awake since before dawn, cooking breakfast with the other young married women. Now her face flushed beneath her white headscarf and she moved awkwardly, her belly thickened with pregnancy. She wore a knee-length robe of camel’s hair, embroidered with symbols of fertility and the emblems of her own birth clan, Black Marmot.

  When Kendira had married Alsanobal a little over a year ago, her speech and manners had seemed strange, although she’d behaved properly in all things. She was respectful to the men of the Golden Eagle clan and even more so to her husband’s mother. Now that her advancing pregnancy gave her a topic of conversation with the other women, they were gradually beginning to accept her into their circles.

  Kendira sighed, glancing at the fading embers of the cook fire. Shannivar would have liked more tea, strong, pleasantly bitter, and swimming with butter. Any man would have thought nothing of telling Kendira to build the fire up again, even if it meant collecting more camel dung as fuel. Her cousin’s wife, however, looked so weary, perhaps still homesick, that Shannivar could not ask it.

  “Will you not sit and gossip with us?” Shannivar gestured for Kendira to rest. “Did you see the strangers as they came into camp? What are they like? Is it true they are not Gelon?”

  “I know no more of these strangers than you do.” Kendira lowered herself with another sigh. She rubbed her lower back with one hand. “I can stay only for a moment. My mother-in-law will scold if I am late.”

  “Surely, once your child is born, you need not work so hard,” Shannivar said. “Your mother-in-law will dote upon her first grandson, and so will all the other aunties.”

  “No, no, it must never be said that I shirked a wife’s duties.” Kendira glanced speculatively at Rhuzenjin, who blushed and turned away. “We must not complain of the responsibilities of marriage or our husbands will think we are not eager.”

  Shannivar bit her lip. Kendira was said to have killed three Gelon before her marriage. Alsanobal had bragged about her prowess, what a fine warrior wife he had. Now she moved like an old woman and thought of nothing more than marriages and babies! She would not be going to the gathering this year, to drink k’th and dance until sunrise.

  “As for the strangers, I myself know little of them,” Rhuzenjin said. “Only that they are not Azkhantian.”

  “Surely they cannot be Gelon,” Kendira said, making a face of disdain. “Or if they are, they must be cursed by Onjhol, to be so lacking in sense as to walk freely among their enemies, like the rabbit that hops of its own will into the cookpot.”

  Rhuzenjin, whose birth clan flourished under the totem of the Rabbit, crafty and agile, made a noise like an aborted snort.

  “They could be outlaws among their own people,” Shannivar mused aloud. “Or spies pretending to be traitors in order to gain our confidence.”

  “Do they think to discover our weaknesses?” Rhuzenjin shook his head. “Then they are fools indeed.”

  “What they are is none of our concern,” Kendira said tartly. “It is for the chieftain and the elders to decide. If necessary, the enaree will use his magic to separate out the truth.”

  There was no denying any of this, so neither Shannivar nor Rhuzenjin said anything.

  Kendira clambered to her feet. “I must get back to work. Grandmother has ordered wool to be beaten and soaked for felt.”

  Shannivar looked away. Kendira’s tone shifted, friendly now. “Come and join us, Shannivar. We must become better cousins to one another. There will be work aplenty.”

  “I will come in a little while.”

  After Kendira left, Shannivar and Rhuzenjin sat in silence, alone. “Shannivar,” he said, clearly ill at ease, “is it true that you intend to find a husband at the khural?”

  “I intend to ride Eriu in the Long Ride.”

  “It is the time for young men to choose wives. Strong wives, to bear them many sons.”

  “And daughters, too, or there will be none for the sons to marry!” Shannivar said, laughing to cover her discomfort. “I wonder what the strangers want. They are taking a long time in there.”

  “It is said you are to build your jort. And that means you will not be returning to us.”

  Only last night she had spoken with Grandmother. Tabilit’s golden fingers, did everyone in the entire dharlak know of that conversation?

  She reminded herself that men gossiped just as much as women did. But men also lived their whole lives with one another, with their brothers and comrades. They had no need to leave their families to marry. Or to marry at all.

  “If—if there were a man here among your own people, one who—who pleased you,” Rhuzenjin stammered, “then would you stay?”

  “I have never wished to leave my clan,” Shannivar admitted. “Many things can happen at a gathering. The man who seeks to—to please me,” she repeated Rhuzenjin’s words, “must first catch me.”

  She meant the comment as a joke, but it fell flat. Unsaid words hung like smoke between them.

  Bidding Rhuzenjin a bright morning, Shannivar went to retrieve Eriu and see to the care of Alsanobal’s wretched horse. She had half a mind to swing up on the red’s back and ride through the encampment just to defy the old legends and create as much outrage as possible.

  Chapter 5

  AFTER the horses were tended, Shannivar joined the other women on the grassy field as they pounded the piles of sheep’s wool, a process that took several hours. Afterward, the wool would be folded with an old felt, too thin and ragged for further use, and soaked with water. Then came the grueling work of dragging and rolling the sodden mass until the fibers meshed together. Once that was done, they would make offerings to Tabilit, milk and incense to bless the new felt before it was spread to dry in the sun.

  The older women sat a little apart, casting sidelong glances at the younger ones. They were scheming, Shannivar thought, about who would be the next to marry. Kendira, sitting with the other young wives, grinned and waved. Shannivar smiled back, but found a place with her closest friend, Mirrimal daughter of Sayyiqan.

  After one look at her friend’s expression, Shannivar made no attempt at light conversation. Mirrimal bent over the wool, her face set in concentration. Exertion flushed her cheeks, high and broad, with the stamp of her Antelope clan mother. She had shoved her shirt sleeves above her elbows, so that the muscles of her forearms stood out like ropes. Sweating, she pounded the mat of fibers as if it were an enemy who refused to die.

  Because Mirrimal was two years older than Shannivar, they had not been close as childre
n. As they grew to womanhood and watched their age mates set aside bows for marriage, a bond of wordless understanding had grown between them. Shannivar wondered if Grandmother had spoken to Mirrimal, and that was why her friend was angry. Perhaps we will both find husbands at the khural. Maybe brothers, so we will not be parted.

  “A song!” one of the young women cried. “Shannivar, a song!”

  “Sing to us of Saramark,” another urged, “so that her strength may pass into the felt!”

  “‘May the strong bones of my body rest in the earth,’” Shannivar sang, and the other women answered, beating in rhythm, “Ayay, ayay!”

  “‘May the black hair on my head turn to meadow-grass.’”

  “Ayay, ayay!”

  “‘May my bright eyes become springs that never fail.’”

  “Ayay, ayay!”

  “‘May the hungry camels come and eat. May the thirsty horses come and drink.’”

  “Ayay, ayay! Ayay, ayay!”

  Kendira’s mother-in-law circled the work party, inspecting the heaped wool. She bent over Mirrimal’s work and scowled. “You’ll never get a husband that way!”

  Mirrimal tossed her head. “I do not want a husband who thinks a woman is good only for pounding wool.”

  “Oh, husbands are interested in far more than that, I can tell you!” Kendira patted her swollen belly. “At least, mine is!”

  “Yours is young and strong,” one of the older women cackled. “Just wait until he’s old and shriveled!”

  “Oh, no,” her sister, long since widowed, answered. “What they lack in stamina, they make up for in experience!”

  The other women laughed and someone began the old courting song about the blind woman and the radish. Only Shannivar and Mirrimal did not laugh.

  Shannivar looked away from her friend’s reddened cheeks and unhappy expression. Like Shannivar, Mirrimal loved her present life. In addition to prowess with the bow, she was skilled with handling livestock of all sorts. For a time, Shannivar heard whispers that her cousin Alsanobal had asked for Mirrimal, and that there had been several meetings between Mirrimal’s father and Grandmother. Old heads had wagged, winks and nods had been exchanged, and Mirrimal had prepared for the next round of raids against the Gelon as if for her own funeral. The night of their victorious return, Mirrimal would not speak to Shannivar, but sat beside the fire and downed skin after skin of potent k’th. Shannivar glimpsed her friend and Alsanobal stagger from the firelit circles together. After that, there was no more talk of marriage. Mirrimal refused to say what had happened. Alsanobal returned from the next gathering with his new wife, Kendira.

  Shannivar’s brows tightened. There was not much hope for any Azkhantian woman to remain unmarried, not unless she was deformed like Scarface or too old to bear children. A widow had control of her own jort, as well as her husband’s horses and his share of the sheep and camels; she could not be forced to remarry unless she wished it, but to refuse was considered improper, even scandalous. There were many ways of pressuring a young, fertile woman to take another husband.

  “I am glad you will be riding to the khural,” Shannivar said, low enough so that only Mirrimal could hear her under the new song, a traditional courting chant. “We will have one more adventure together.”

  “I did not think you would bow so easily to custom.” Mirrimal scowled as she surveyed the felt.

  Not custom alone, Shannivar thought. You have never shared Grandmother’s jort. “I do not wish to delay until all my choices are gone,” she tried to sound gentle. “Perhaps—if you competed in the Long Ride with me, then you too would have a choice of husbands. You could—”

  “You know me better than that!” Mirrimal’s voice was tight with anger and the accusation of betrayal.

  “I am sorry to have offended you. But the Gelon will never relent, at least not this Ar-King. Perhaps if we lived in a time of peace. Since we do not, is it not better to exercise what choice we still have?”

  “Not you, Shannu—I cannot believe that of you. Have you given up your dreams of glory?”

  Shannivar set her lips together. “Now it is you who mistake me, dear friend. I have not forgotten, I am trying to be practical. What about your own hopes? What do you wish for?”

  “I wish a woman could become an enaree!” Mirrimal sighed. “Then I might have an honest place in the world! Why is it that a man can tread the boundaries of dreams and a woman cannot? When he dons the garments of a woman, he becomes neither one nor the other, ripe for visions. Why can’t a woman take on the trappings of a man and do the same?”

  “Yet it is the custom. Only men may become shamans. Perhaps it is easier to give up the hope of siring a child than of bearing one.”

  “I refuse to believe that Tabilit ordered such a thing!” Mirrimal renewed her attack on the felt. “This is one more stupid rule. Made up by men!”

  After a long moment, Shannivar said, “Do you despise me, then, because I will make my jort and seek a husband?”

  “No, no.” Mirrimal put down her pounding stick. She sounded weary, all her vehemence spent. She leaned over and kissed Shannivar with surprising tenderness. “You will always be my true friend. I am afraid, that is all.”

  “You, who are not afraid of anything.” Shannivar forced a laugh. “How can that be?”

  Mirrimal gave her a sideways glance. “There are worse things than cloud leopards or Gelonian armies. Even than death.”

  A life confined, drained of honor, without hope of glory. Shannivar shuddered.

  “It is not death I fear,” Mirrimal whispered.

  Shannivar touched her friend’s hand. “We are of the race of great women warriors. Think of Saramark and Aimellina daughter of Oomara, of the first Shannivar! Tabilit will not turn away from our prayers. Are we not women, as she is? Does she not bestow special care on those who fight in her name?”

  “Oh, Shannu,” Mirrimal cried, using the childhood familiar name. “I wish I had your faith! We give our loyalty to the goddess, but more times than not, she leaves our fate in the hands of men. Is it a wonder that sometimes I wish I were dead?”

  “She leaves our fate in our own hands. You must believe that! You are not helpless, any more than I am! Why not appeal to the Council of elders at the khural—or the enarees themselves?”

  “For what? What would you have me ask that they have within their power to grant?”

  No words rose to Shannivar’s mouth. Her heart was too full of what Mirrimal had said: It is not death I fear.

  * * *

  When one of the younger boys brought word that Esdarash and the strangers had emerged, all but the oldest women set aside their pounding sticks and ran to the center of the camp. Shannivar and Mirrimal quickly outdistanced the others.

  Most of the adult population of the encampment, as well as the older children, had gathered around Grandmother’s jort. Everyone was talking at once, pointing and gesturing. Some made protective signs against evil influences.

  Esdarash’s wife elbowed her way to the front of the crowd. “Get out of my way! Let me through!”

  Esdarash himself stood in front of the jort, flanked by his son and the enaree. Alsanobal thrust his chest out, clearly pleased with his position of responsibility. As for the shaman, Shannivar had never been able to read the expression on his moon-round face, and she could not do so now. Like all of his kind, he wore a long deerskin robe over his trousers. Layers of faded symbols covered the yoke and shoulders of the robe. Strings of beads knotted with tiny bones and feathers dangled from his dream stick. His gaze seemed fixed, turned inward to some vision that only he could see. Whether he was terrified, entranced, or simply attending to his magical duties, Shannivar could not say.

  Her uncle was another matter. He was the firstborn of Grandmother’s sons, older than Shannivar’s father by ten years, and now he looked his age. Lines of worry ma
rked his weathered face. White frosted his moustache as well as the hair partly hidden beneath his peaked cap with its chieftain’s feathers. Yet his voice was strong and firm as he commanded the assembly to order.

  Everyone settled into their places, and Shannivar got her first look at the two strangers. Instead of sensible trousers, boots, and jackets cut close to the body, they wore belted knee-length gowns, short cloaks, and sandals, utterly impractical for riding. At first glance, she thought they must surely be Gelon. Their skins were pale, except where the sun had darkened them. Both had unbound dark red curls, the head of one shot with gray. That must be the one called Leanthos.

  Shannivar peered at him, trying to decide if he were very brave or simply very foolish to venture into clan territory. Certainly, he was no match for any Azkhantian child, with his thin arms and knobby knees. Yet as he glanced at the waiting crowd and back to Esdarash, his expression was confident and calculating. Weak he might be, and unskilled at arms, but not a fool.

  The younger man, with his slab-like jaw and beaked nose, clearly deferred to the gray-hair, and he carried himself with the subtle alertness of a fighter. He might be trying to pass himself off as a mere assistant, but no one with sense could mistake him for anything but a man of action.

  Esdarash explained that the strangers had ridden freely into the dharlak, their weapons undrawn, bearing gifts.

  Gifts? A murmur spread through the assembly.

  Two of the younger warriors, Rhuzenjin and another, came forward at Esdarash’s signal and placed the gifts on a blanket. They laid out strings of beads in brilliant colors, jewelry of silver and copper, and several small daggers of Denariyan steel. The craftsmanship of the jewelry and dagger hilts was good, although not as fine as the best Azkhantian work, but the stones—amber, turquoise, coral, and others Shannivar did not know—were of excellent quality.

  Around her, people exclaimed in delight, but suspicion roused in Shannivar’s mind. What was the purpose of such rich offerings? What did these men want in return?