White Mare's Daughter

by Judith Tarr

  “I know all that,” said Tilia. “Tell me about her.”

  He set his teeth and would not answer.

  Tilia waited till all the meal on the stone was ground. When he reached for another bowlful of grain, she caught his hand. “Do you like her?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “She’s not beautiful,” Tilia said, “but she’s interesting. Different. Her eyes are almost alarming. They’re green.”

  “There’s nothing demonic about her,” he said, perhaps more heatedly than he had meant.

  Tilia did not tax him with it, for a wonder. “Kosti says the men are jealous. They want to know how you convinced her to choose you.”

  “They should ask me that,” said Danu.

  “They would, if you weren’t keeping so close to the house or else to the woman.”

  “Her name,” said Danu, “is Sarama.”

  “You like her very much, don’t you?”

  “You’re talking like a man,” he said.

  She laughed. He had forgotten how difficult it was to prick her temper. “It’s true, what Kosti said. Isn’t it? In her country, men do the choosing.”

  “How does Kosti know that?”

  “He asked her,” Tilia said.

  Danu did not know why he should find that objectionable. Kosti was a great master of attracting women. But Sarama had yet to order Danu out of her bed.

  Tilia’s eyes were dancing. She could see perfectly well what he was thinking. “So in the east, men do choose.”

  “It . . . was both of us,” Danu said.

  “Sometimes it is,” said Tilia. “I’m glad you left Larchwood. The house didn’t like anyone else who tried to run it. The Mother was actually cross. Nothing was really right, till you came back.”

  That was a mighty confession. Danu granted it a moment’s silence. “So you don’t mind? That I came back with a stranger from so far away that she doesn’t even speak our language?”

  “She does after a fashion,” Tilia said. “I don’t know that I like her. But she brought you home.”

  oOo

  “I don’t know if I like your sister,” Sarama said.

  She had come in late, as the last light left the sky, windblown and with her cheeks ruddy with cold. When Danu was done with all his tasks, he found her curled in the bed they had been sharing, wide awake, with a cup of warm honey mead that he had kept by the hearth for her.

  She insisted that he take half of it. It was strong and almost unbearably sweet, and still warm enough to startle his tongue.

  “I don’t know if I like her,” Sarama said while he savored the mead, “but I think she is very good as a—Mother?”

  “Mother’s heir,” Danu said.

  “Yes. She will be a Mother.”

  “People say,” said Danu, “that she’s too headlong and headstrong, and knows too little of serenity. But I think Mothers learn that once they take their places. It’s something the Lady gives them.”

  Sarama nodded. “I—there was Old Woman. Now there is only I. I should know more, be more. But sometimes, I do know.”

  He could see how difficult it was for her, the words stumbling, perhaps ill chosen, but she knew no others. Still he thought he understood. “You are a Mother,” he said.

  She went white, as if he had struck her. “How did you—” She broke off. The color came back slowly to her face. “A—a Mother. Like the Mother of a city. No. No, I don’t have everything that a Mother has. All the people. The duties. The—everything.”

  “A Mother is the Lady’s servant,” Danu said. “You serve the Lady. She speaks to you. You bear burdens—the whole world, your journey, the war. That’s what Mothers do.”

  “They rule cities,” Sarama said.

  “Sometimes,” said Danu. “Not always. A Mother hears the Lady’s voice.”

  “Then you are a Mother,” Sarama said.

  He could not see that she was laughing at him. Yet she must be. “A Mother is a woman,” he said.

  “Can’t a man hear the Lady, too?”

  “Can they, where you come from?”

  She shrugged. “Men hear gods. I think—maybe—my brother could hear the Lady, if he would admit it.”

  “You have a brother?”

  “I have many,” she said. “But one—the same mother. We were born together. I was first. He is—the horsemen have men to rule them. Kings. He is the king’s heir.”

  “King,” Danu said, trying the strange word on his tongue. “A man who is a Mother?”

  “Different,” she said, “but maybe a little the same.”

  Danu’s head ached. It often did, when he tried to understand her. “I am not a king,” he said. “Nor a Mother, either. I am something much less. Like a flute. It is not the music, nor does it make the music. The music sings through it.”

  “Maybe,” she said, “a seer. A prophet. One who speaks when the gods speak, so that other people can hear.”

  He nodded. “Yes. Yes, that’s it.”

  “Then I am that, too,” she said.

  “No. You are more.” He spoke swiftly, before she could stop him. “Teach me your words. Teach me your language, as I’ve taught you mine. I need to understand. What your words are like. How you think them.”

  “You know some words,” she said. “I’ll teach you more.”

  “Yes,” said Danu. “All the words you know. Even the ones that frighten me.”

  “That could take a long time,” she said.

  “I learn quickly,” he said. “Or are you leaving soon?”

  “Not unless your sister sends me away,” she said.

  “Tilia won’t do that,” said Danu. “Catin was afraid—terrified, all the time. Tilia is afraid of nothing.”

  “I think she is afraid of some things,” Sarama said, “but she doesn’t let them rule her.”

  “She doesn’t know about war,” Danu said. “When are you going to tell her?”

  “When the Mother asks,” Sarama said.

  “She’ll wait for you to tell her.”

  “She shouldn’t wait too long,” said Sarama.

  “I think you should tell her,” Danu said. “And soon.”

  “And if she sends me away?”

  “She won’t,” said Danu.

  Sarama’s glance was doubtful, but she did not argue. There were advantages, he thought, in a woman whose tongue was not entirely certain, yet, of the Lady’s speech.

  36

  Sarama had delayed in speaking with the Mother because—at last she would admit it—she was a coward. She did not want to be sent away from this place, from this man who had, somehow, become as necessary as the breath she drew. She did not need to be near him every moment, but when she was apart from him, she felt the lack more keenly, the longer they were parted.

  He did not feel the same. She could tell that. He was home, among his people, in the place that was rightfully his.

  A prince indeed, and the heart and center of this house, too, though he seemed unaware of it. Everyone who came in went inevitably to him, wherever he was. He was much too preoccupied to dream and sigh after a woman.

  But he had forced her to see what she must do. She was not here simply to be his lover. She must speak to the Mother, must persuade her to listen as the Mother of Larchwood had refused to do.

  This Mother was stronger, hardier, and less overtly fearful. And yet that strength might well betray Sarama; might persuade the Mother that she need not listen to a stranger bringing tales that, for all she knew, might be sheerest falsehood.

  oOo

  Sarama did not need after all to seek the Mother. The Mother met her on the path that she had made from the city to the horses’ meadow. For once there were no children about, and no curious elders. Only the two of them and the snow, and the low grey sky.

  Sarama greeted her with wide-eyed silence. That she was well able to walk despite her massive bulk, Sarama had seen often enough; and yet it was startling to see her here, wrapped in a mantle like
an ordinary woman, without escort or guard of honor.

  She smiled at Sarama. Sarama mustered something like a smile in return. She began to walk, not toward the city but on the way that Sarama had been going, toward the meadow and the horses. Sarama had to stretch to catch her.

  They walked without speaking. It was strange, because it was not an uncomfortable silence. No hostility. No tension.

  It had been so with Old Woman; but Sarama had been of her own blood, her daughter’s daughter. This was a dark-haired, dark-eyed, dark-skinned woman of an alien country.

  The Mother spoke first, as would have been proper on the steppe. “Tell me, woman from far away. Are you well looked after here?”

  “Very well,” Sarama said.

  “And my son: does he please you?”

  Sarama choked, coughed. She must remember—she must—that a woman here was as a man. A king would have asked such a thing of his guest whom he had given the gift of a woman. She tried to answer as such a guest would have done. “He pleases me well,” she said.

  The Mother nodded. “Never tell anyone, but he is the best of my sons—perhaps of all my children. The Lady loves him dearly.”

  “I . . . can see why,” Sarama said.

  “He tells me,” said the Mother, “that you came here not simply to see our city.”

  “Did not—” Sarama stopped; but the Mother’s level stare bade her go on. “Did not the people from Larchwood tell you why I was sent here?”

  “I sent them home,” the Mother said, “for they were ill for want of it. If there was a message, it was left to you to deliver.”

  Sarama could not believe that. As silent and forbidding as those women had been, surely they would speak to the Mother of a city. Or the Mother would command that they speak.

  “My son tells me,” said the Mother, “that your people have very different ways of doing things. Here, we cultivate patience. I’m not compelling you to tell me now why you came here. I only ask that, when you judge the time to be ripe, you speak and hold nothing back.”

  “They told you nothing?” Sarama asked.

  “It is yours to tell,” said the Mother. She could, it was clear, be greatly patient.

  Sarama drew a deep breath and walked on. She had mustered words long ago, but it took a degree of courage to speak them.

  They were the same words she had spoken to the Mother of Larchwood, the same unvarnished truth: war, killing, the tribes of the steppe running over the Lady’s country with fire and sword. She knew no other way to tell it, none gentler or sweeter to the tongue.

  This Mother heard her in silence as they walked on the path that Sarama had made in the snow. Sarama finished just at the edge of the horses’ meadow. They were at the far end, playing one of their games of circle-and-chase, but at sight of Sarama their heads flew up.

  The colt’s call was piercing in the still, cold air. They wheeled and came on at the gallop, manes and tails streaming.

  The Mother stood her ground beside Sarama as the horses thundered nigh on top of them and halted, snorting, churning the snow into a cloud about them. Needles of it stung Sarama’s cheeks.

  She reached through it. The Mare lowered her head and blew warm breath into Sarama’s hand.

  “This is how they will come,” the Mother said. “On horses, faster than any of us can run.”

  “Yes,” said Sarama over the Mare’s neck, for the Mare had slipped herself craftily between them.

  “A horse is a beautiful thing,” the Mother said, venturing to touch the Mare’s mane.

  The Mare did not object. She recognized one of the goddess’ servants. The Mother stroked her, gingerly at first, then with growing confidence. “It’s rather horrible that these people should use them to make war.”

  “Horses are fast,” said Sarama, “and strong. And they do a man’s will. They don’t know if that is good or bad. Only that it is.”

  “Perfect servants,” said the Mother a little wryly.

  Sarama slanted a glance at her. “Not perfect,” she said. “But—willing. For love or fear.”

  “Yes,” the Mother said.

  Sarama did not know if she understood. Perhaps she did. “Do you believe me? About war?”

  “I believe you,” the Mother said. “She of Larchwood sent you away. Why?”

  “Fear,” said Sarama. “Catin—the heir—said I brought the war. If I went away, the war would go away. She thought I was leading the horsemen, showing them the way.”

  “Are you?”

  Sarama’s lips twitched. “Catin said yes.”

  “What do you say?”

  “Would I tell the truth?”

  “You can’t lie to me,” the Mother said.

  “Larchwood’s Mother thought I could.”

  The Mother shook her head. “No. But a Mother’s heir—she has to be heeded. If she believes a thing, even if that thing is not . . . what it should be, the Mother considers it. And, as now, may send the trouble onward, to a Mother who is stronger, whose people are more numerous, who can overcome it as she could not.”

  Those were a great many words, and some of them confusing. But Sarama comprehended enough. “You are stronger, and she was afraid. I understand. But she should have kept me. They don’t know how to fight.”

  “Necessity will teach them.”

  “Necessity is not enough. They need—” Sarama groped for the word, could find none. She thrust up her hand, clenched into a fist. “They need to know how. The horsemen know. All their lives—they know.”

  “They are born to fight? To kill?”

  “Wolves are born to kill. Lions. Bears. Men.”

  “Not our men,” the Mother said.

  “You teach them not to,” said Sarama.

  “Sometimes,” said the Mother, “a person—not always a man, but often—goes mad, or loses his sight of the Lady. Then he takes up an axe or a hunting spear, and he takes a life.”

  “Do you kill him for it?”

  “No,” said the Mother. “We invoke the Lady’s mercy. Sometimes she cures him of his madness. Sometimes she takes him away. Sometimes . . . she asks for his blood.”

  “You kill him,” Sarama said. “I think you can learn to fight.”

  “Fighting is a terrible thing.”

  Sarama sighed. Again, it went round again. “War is worse,” she said.

  This Mother did not refuse to listen. She regarded Sarama over the Mare’s neck, with her fingers woven in the smoke-grey mane, and said, “You know what you’re asking us to do.”

  Sarama nodded somberly.

  “And yet,” said the Mother, “we have no choice. Do we? The Lady sent you to us. For this: to help us stand against the men’s gods.”

  “Why couldn’t she see?” Sarama demanded. “The other one?”

  “I have no doubt she could,” the Mother said. “But she was afraid, and her daughter was even more afraid.”

  “The war will come to them first,” Sarama said.

  “Yes,” said the Mother. There was grief in her voice, but no yielding. “Each of us does as she must. It’s no one else’s place to interfere.”

  “That too you must learn,” said Sarama. “To interfere. To help.”

  “Ourselves first,” the Mother said. “The rest after.”

  “It will change you.”

  “Yes,” the Mother said.

  Her calm had cracked, perhaps. It was difficult to tell. Sarama saw her then as a woman, and not terribly old, either; troubled as any other would be, and frightened, but determined to do whatever she must do, to keep her people safe.

  She was very like her son.

  oOo

  Sarama did not ride long that day: the snow fell early and heavily, and drove her back toward the Mother’s house. The horses professed no desire to follow. They were content with the shelter of their copse, and their heavy coats.

  The house was wonderfully warm. It was full of people, but people who offered her neither suspicion nor dislike. They smiled and o
pened their arms and welcomed her as if—by the Lady, as if she had been kin.

  This was not the Mother’s doing. It had been the same yesterday and the day before. She was welcome, she was kin, because she had come with the Mother’s son.

  If they knew why she had come—

  They knew. Tilia sat next to her and passed her a bowl of something fragrant and steaming, for which she had no word yet, and said, “Tell me what fighting is.”

  Sarama gaped.

  “Yes, tell us,” said one of the other daughters. “We need to know. The Mother said.”

  “Now?” Sarama asked. “Here?”

  “If not now,” said Tilia, “then when?”

  Sarama drew breath to answer, but the words did not come. She rose instead and set the bowl aside, and said, “Somewhere open. With room.”

  There was no better place, in fact, than here, once the table and the benches and the stools had been pushed aside, and the makings of dinner covered or taken away, and space made that was, if not ample, then at least adequate. It was a strange army Sarama had begun to train, and by its own expressed will, too: a handful of women and girls, and a manchild or two, and Danu and a pair of the elder sons dragged in from the kitchen whether they would or no.

  Sarama did not think that Danu was as willing as the women were. But he had asked her to teach him to fight. Now she could begin.

  She caught his eye as she mustered her troops. Yes: he remembered. His expression was more rueful than sullen. She had not known she was holding her breath till she let it go; or that it had mattered so much that he accept this that the Lady, and now his own Mother, had laid on him.

  If he accepted it, then so could she. Gladly, even. Even with war in front of them, and fear, and maybe, if the Lady willed, death.

  So be it, thought Sarama. As the Lady willed.

  THE CONQUEROR

  I: THE KING’S HEIR

  37

  With the coming of full summer, the White Horse people settled into the chief of its camps, the high camp where the grass was richest and the water purest, springing from a cleft in the rock and spreading into a broad pool before it ran down to join a greater river.