White Mare's Daughter

by Judith Tarr

  “If you don’t, you don’t think you can hold this country. What makes you think you’re holding it now? You’re an unwelcome guest, plied with everything they can think of to persuade you to move on. You haven’t held a single town. You’ve gone where they’ve led you, and let them lure you deeper into their country. How is that a conquest? What have you done but see the sights?”

  “You are telling me,” Agni said, “that I should bring war on them. That I should force them as Rahim forced this woman.”

  “I am telling you that you’ve been trusting too much in the gods and too little in your own wits. What do you want here? Do you want to travel from town to town, taking what each will give, then moving on, all the way to the end of the world? That’s what they’ll have you do.”

  “What does that have to do with Rahim’s mistake?”

  “I suppose it was an honest mistake,” Taditi said. “Or honest idiocy at least. It’s costing a life, maybe two. Three, if you submit him to these people’s justice.”

  “I don’t have to,” Agni said. “They know nothing of fighting. If they curse us, I’ll invoke our own gods. There’s nothing they can do to us.”

  “Nothing,” said Taditi, “except refuse to welcome you anywhere you go. They won’t feed you, lodge you, give you comfort. You’ll be outcast here as you were among the tribes.”

  “But here,” said Agni, “I can take what I need, and hold it by force of arms.”

  “Surely,” she said. “Three hundred of you. Uncounted multitudes of them. Maybe they won’t fight—maybe they can’t. What will you wager that they won’t set their bodies between you and whatever you reach for? How many can you kill before you sicken with it? How ruthless are you prepared to be?”

  Agni had brought her here to say such things to him—to speak the words that no one else had the wits or the courage to say. He did not have to like what she said, or be glad that she had said it. “You’re telling me that I have to let them kill Rahim.”

  “I’m not telling you anything,” she said, “but that your fool of a friend has struck a spark that can burn to ashes everything that you hope for here. What do you hope for? Do you even know?”

  “I hope,” said Agni, “I want—the gods want me to be king. They cast me out of my tribe. They sent me here. Now, for a few moments’ play, we lose it all.”

  “That was not play,” Taditi said with startling venom. She drove Agni back with it, till the wall caught him.

  Her face filled his world. “Understand something, boy. I love you, I’ve loved you since you were born. I raised you after your mother died. I brought you up, as much as anyone did. But this was no mere error. It was not play. It was sheer wanton heedlessness. I say let him die for it.”

  “He didn’t know,” said Agni, and hated himself: it came out weak, little better than a whine.

  “He knew the price you paid for a rape you never committed. It should have occurred to him that this was rape, too. He’s not a simple fool. He was born to be a chieftain, to be head of a clan. He should have understood.”

  “You are merciless,” Agni said.

  “I believe,” she said, “in this country they call it the Lady’s mercy.”

  Agni’s head was pounding. He rolled it against the wall, taking what pleasure he could in the movement.

  Behind Taditi he saw women gathering, heard sounds that made his heart grow cold. Their goddess was not going to spare anyone. She was taking the child even as Agni cowered there, taking it back to herself.

  Just so had Earth Mother done with the woman of the Red Deer. But that had been no fault of Agni’s, except in that he had fathered the child. It had lived and died out of his knowledge, and its mother with it.

  Rahim had done a worse thing than that. He had begun no life, only ended it.

  A warrior who killed in war, who took a woman captive, who slew her menchildren lest they grow up to be his enemies—he was an honorable man, with the honor of war. There was no honor in this. There was no glory. Only blood and pain.

  How could Agni understand, when no one else could?

  “Maybe because you have more wits than most,” Taditi answered him. “And maybe because your mother was Horse Goddess’ own. Through her you come of a different blood. Sometimes when you catch yourself off guard you don’t think as the others do. You see differently. You understand things that leave the other tribesmen baffled.”

  “You are of the tribes,” Agni said, thrusting the words at her. “How do you know these things?”

  “I’m a woman,” Taditi said. She stepped back, freeing him from the weight of her shadow. “You want me to tell you what to think. I tell you what I think. If you want to be a king, you have to have thoughts of your own. You’ll find a way out of this tangle.”

  “Alone?”

  “However you best may.”

  oOo

  Agni left them all to it, the girl weeping as she gave up her baby’s life in blood, the women weeping with her, and Taditi standing in grim silence. He would have liked to see what happened when they noticed her, but he had to go away. He had to escape those walls.

  It was very early morning, just short of sunrise, cool but with a promise of strong heat later. Barefoot, bare-chested, in the trousers that he had snatched when he was roused from sleep, he was comfortable enough.

  There were people about, a surprising number of them. Most, to his amazement, were men. They dandled children or stood about with floured hands as if they had come from the baking; or they were armed as if for the hunt. They surrounded the Mother’s house, staring at it, dark-eyed and silent.

  He was aware, abruptly, that he had no weapon. Even his meat-knife lay forgotten in the room where he had slept. He had no defense but his hands.

  This country had corrupted him indeed, if he would leave his bed without at least a knife. He half-turned to go back, to fetch all his weapons, but he could not go back into that house.

  If that was cowardice, so be it. He would trust in these innocents, that none would rise and slaughter him in the place of the fool Rahim.

  He walked through them, and they made no move to stop him. In the camp just beyond, his people were beginning to stir. Some had come out to stare, a few with drawn knives, watchful; but none offered provocation.

  He did not enter the camp but walked past it. They called to him from it. “Agni! Agni prince! Is it true? Is there a war?”

  “Not yet,” he called back.

  “We heard they killed Rahim,” someone said.

  “Rahim is alive,” said Agni, more grimly than he wanted to; but he could not lighten his voice. “Stay here, be quiet. Don’t provoke anything. Wait till I come back.”

  “Where are you going?” That was Tillu, freed of messages and charges but clearly ready to go wherever Agni went.

  Agni looked him in the face. “I’m going to talk to the gods. I must go alone.”

  “Unarmed? Half naked?”

  “As the gods call me,” Agni said. “Look after my people here. See that they stay out of trouble.”

  “First tell them what happened,” Tillu said, “or they’ll be running riot in the city.”

  Agni’s brows went up. “You didn’t tell them?”

  “It’s not mine to tell,” said Tillu.

  Agni sighed. No, it was not. It was Agni’s burden, and his choice: to bear it in silence while the rumors ran rampant, or afflict his people with the truth.

  He raised his voice for all nearby to hear. “Rahim took a woman who wasn’t willing. She was pregnant; she’s losing the child. Their law demands his life if the child dies.”

  A murmur ran through the tribesmen. There was a growl in it, a shiver of danger. Agni pitched his voice to quell it. “I go to ask the gods what to do. Do nothing till I come back. Swear to it.”

  Tillu, who was closest, swore for them all. Not everyone was glad that he did it, but once it was done, no one tried to undo it.

  Agni nodded in the face of their silence, an
d walked away from them. No one moved to follow.

  60

  Mitani was grazing with others of the horses in the field near the camp. Agni took him as he was, with halter and rope, and rode him away from the city, up a long hill that rose above the lake. As he rode the sun came up, shedding a long golden light across that green country.

  At the hill’s summit he slid from Mitani’s back, hobbled him and left him to graze. Agni sat at the very top, with all the world spread out below: field and wood, river and lake, and the circles of cities stretching as far as he could see. Some were larger, some smaller, but each signified untold hundreds of people. And every one worshipped Earth Mother, ignorant of the younger gods: men in submission to women, and women ruling like kings.

  While he sat there, a flock of birds rose fluttering and chattering from a little grove of trees. Just as they reached the level of his eyes, a dark shape hurtled down out of the sun. A hawk, too swift almost to see.

  Straight in front of Agni he struck. Feathers flew. He plummeted a dizzying distance, clear to the ground below, and in each claw he gripped a dying bird.

  Agni let his breath out slowly. The gods were seldom so clear in their omens, or so prompt with them, either.

  Take this country, yes. Make himself lord of it. Rule it as the hawk ruled the lesser creatures of the air.

  And what of Rahim?

  To that they gave him no answer, or none that he could perceive. A man of the tribes would punish Rahim, but mildly: a few blows with a horseman’s whip, or the taking of one of his horses. He had, after all, committed no crime against one of his people.

  But Agni could not forget the girl’s face, how she had looked at him, how she had doubled up in pain as her womb began to empty itself. Rahim in his incomprehension, heedless arrogant boy, could not at all understand what he had done.

  Agni had loved him, still loved him. But this transgression Agni could not forgive.

  Agni had never thought of himself as an implacable man. He was a man whom women loved, whom men were pleased to call friend. This hard cold thing that he felt inside of himself, that was new. It was as heavy as the collar that he still wore, that he seldom took off, the twisted ring of gold and amber.

  It came from the same place, from the people of this country. It had the weight of an oath, though he had sworn none; or none that he was aware of.

  Was that what these people had bought from him? Not only his quiescence, but a portion of his honor? And with it, his loyalty?

  He shivered in the sun. The wind tugged playfully at his hair, that was loose, fallen out of its braid. He raked it out of his face and drew up his knees and set his chin on them, knotted tight, glaring into blue infinity.

  The world was not supposed to be complicated. He was supposed to be king of the White Horse people, sire a son to be king after him, rule the tribe and lead its wars, and when his time came, go into the earth in the sacrifice of kings.

  He should not be here on this hilltop in the sunset country, contemplating the death of his friend. His friend who was irretrievably simple. Who would never understand why he had to die.

  That was what it was to be a king. He could hear his father’s voice saying it. “A king must choose for the people,” Rama had said. “Not for one man, or even for several, but for them all.”

  “Even these people who are no kin of mine at all?” Agni asked of the sky.

  The sun shone down. The birds sang, returned to their copse and their contentment now that they had given due sacrifice to their lord the hawk. Mitani grazed peacefully. Now and then he snorted or stamped at a fly.

  Agni unknotted and lay flat on the grass. His trousers bound him, hot leather, a swiftly waxing annoyance. He peeled out of them and lay naked.

  The sun pressed on him like a hand. He felt the heat of it on his fair skin, but it was pleasant, with just a hint of edge to keep it from cloying.

  He spread his arms to brace himself against the wheeling of the heavens. If he let go, he would fall into the sun.

  His tribe was taken from him. He was cut off from his kin. He was outcast for a crime that he had never committed.

  He had not let himself think of it, not once his new tribe began to gather to him. But here, in the wake of Rahim’s folly, he could no longer run away from it.

  Either he took this country and ruled it, or he turned and fled and withered into nothing. Flight had a greater allure than he liked to admit. An outcast, a nameless man, a creature without presence or life or substance in the world—how restful. The gods could do nothing but kill him; and that would be a welcome thing.

  He had been born to be a king. Such a king: lying on a hilltop, naked but for a collar of gold. His rod had stiffened and come erect, as if in challenge to the sun. Earth Mother held him in her warm embrace.

  He turned as one in a dream, and as in a dream she took him in her arms. He made slow love to her, in the warmth and the green coolness of her body, face buried in breasts that smelled richly of earth and grass and flowers. She whispered in a voice as soft as the wind, stroked him with a touch as light as air. When at last the seed burst out of him, hot and potent, a great sigh escaped her.

  He lay on the grass, spent. The sun was hot on his back; burning. The grass was bruised beneath him. He was all stained with it.

  He rose stiffly, stumbling. It was a long rocky way down to the lake, but to the lake he was determined to go.

  He did not try to mount or ride Mitani. The stallion slipped his hobble with disturbing ease and followed.

  Agni skidded down the last of the slope, fell and rolled, and plunged gasping into icy water. It was as cold as snowmelt, and clean. It scoured the stains from his body and the confusion from his mind. It cast him on the stony shore, with the sun to dry him and his stallion bending over him, sniffing curiously at his hair.

  He pulled himself up and onto Mitani’s back. Mitani shifted a little, uneasy, but at the touch of Agni’s hand on his neck he quieted. “I’m well, brother,” Agni said, and did his best to believe it.

  He sat on that warm damp back, looked up at the steep slope down which he had come, and considered that his trousers were at the top of it, and he as naked as he was born.

  He found that he did not care. He might when the numbness of body and spirit went away, when he woke to the doubled pain of the sun’s burning and bare skin on horsehair, but like a priest in a rite, he felt nothing. It was a sacrifice.

  oOo

  He rode back as he was, and as he rode the sun dried him. The city was quiet. Too quiet, maybe. People were not out and about as they should be on as fine a day as this. They stayed close to their houses and to each other, and fell silent when he rode by.

  Maybe that was only bemusement. He must have been a wild sight.

  His own people had kept to their camp as he had commanded. He did not pause to praise them, nor did he set them free. They followed him nonetheless, silent as the people of the city were.

  The Mother’s house was most quiet of all. No sound came out of it; none of the wailing that would have marked a death among the tribes. Only a bleak silence.

  Agni left Mitani on the doorstep, took a steadying breath and stepped into the dimness of walls and roof. The house was full of people, and yet it smelled of emptiness. Empty heart, empty soul.

  The hawk had taken two birds. Agni remembered that, seeing the still figure in the midst of the women. The girl had died, bled out her life while he played lover to the earth.

  Her Mother sat at her head, still and heavy as stone. Agni looked about for Tillu.

  For once the western chieftain was nowhere to be seen. Nor was there time to hunt for him.

  Agni met that flat dark stare and said deliberately in the only tongue he knew, “You will have your justice. That I swear to you. But you will pay for it. This city is mine, and all that is in it. I take it in return for the life of a fool.”

  Taditi, who understood, fixed him with an unreadable stare. Agni could not escape it,
but his eyes were on the Mother. He spoke with signs, as best he could. “The man will die. I promise you. But your city belongs to me.”

  The Mother did not respond. Nor did it matter. Agni left her and went in search of Rahim.

  Patir and Gauan had looked after him well, had kept him shut in a storeroom. It was not an ill prison, filled as it was with wine and bread and fine things to eat, smoked meats, cheeses, fruits in jars and in barrels.

  Rahim had indulged rather freely in the wine, and fed himself well. He greeted Agni with a broad wine-reeking grin. “Ho, brother! Been seducing the ladies, have you? You forgot your trousers somewhere.”

  “On a hilltop,” Agni said, “under Skyfather’s eye.”

  “Don’t we all,” said Rahim. He held out a jar. “Wine?”

  Agni ignored him, though the scent of it was sweet. “The gods spoke to me,” he said. “I’ve taken this city and made it mine.”

  “About time,” Rahim said.

  “I have also,” said Agni, “sworn a vow to the Mother that she will have justice. The child is dead, Rahim. And so is its mother.”

  Rahim tilted his head and squinted. “Ah,” he said in winy sorrow. “That’s a shame. She was a beauty. Sweet, too. Even fighting.”

  Agni’s heart twisted. He had told himself that he could do this, that the gods commanded it; that he was a king born. That he could be hard, and he could be cold. He could do what he must do. But this drunken fool whom he had known since he was a child, who had been playmate and agemate and companion in war and on the hunt, who had followed him into exile without a word of protest, who was dearer to him than his blood brothers—this idiot, this destroyer of innocents, looked at him with wide watery eyes and shook him to the roots of his resolve.

  He had sworn an oath. The gods had witnessed it. Earth Mother had taken it and sealed it with his seed.

  A life for a life. One life now for two. Justice, and no mercy. Mercy had died when the child died.

  Agni must make Rahim understand. The gods did not require it, but for his own soul’s sake he must do it. He said, “She’s dead, Rahim. You killed her. By the laws of our people and hers, your life is forfeit.”