A Woman of the Horseclans

by Robert Adams

  “It’s as has been said here, Uncle Milo, this pack of Dirtmen have all clearly lost their wits; not that Dirtmen of any stripe are renowned for wits to begin with, else they’d none of them live out their entire lives in immobile, stinking hovels, all a-wallow in their own filth, as they do.”

  “Uncle Milo,” asked Djahn Staiklee of Krooguh, “has ever another Kindred clan admitted a woman born of this singular breed of Dirtmen?”

  Milo nodded. “Two that! know of personally, Djahn. One was Clan Grai, and not too many days’ ride from this very spot, either. The other was wedded into Clan Tchizuhm and the girl-babe found with her was adopted, of course. I never got to meet the woman, but I did converse with the daughter, who by then was the first wife of a subchief of Clan Maklenuhn. No doubt there have been others, over the years, but widely spread as our clans are and must be, chances that we would hear of such cases are slim”

  Staiklee wrinkled up his forehead and asked, “Grai? Clan Grai? Wasn’t it Clan Grai that was almost wiped out by some strange malady, years agone? Who better than strangers to bring in disease and needless death to our clan?”

  Another warrior stood and added, “Yes, Uncle Milo, there are few enough of us Kindred, and our enemies are numerous, savage, and await only our weakening, whatever its cause.”

  Chief Dik pursed his lips. “Yes. Uncle Mile, I, too, recall something about that which struck Clan Grai, but . . .?”

  “That which struck Clan Grai, which all but wiped them out.” interjected Milo. had nothing to do with strangers, happened twenty or more years before they ever found that poor girl and her suckling babe. I don’t know what the illness was and I doubt that anyone else will ever know, but it bore some resemblance to one of the killer plagues that almost wiped out all of mankind in the world that once was. Perhaps the clan chanced to camp among, even dug up, artifacts that still harbored seeds of those terrible plagues. But that is all many years past and bears no relation to the matter of this girl, Bettiloo Hansuhn.

  “Tim Staiklee of Krooguh lifted her, so he and his clan have first rights, but I rode that raid, too; I led it. She has dwelt in my yurt since the raid, and she and my wives are comfortable together. So be you all warned, if Tim Staiklee of Krooguh does not, for whatever reason, take her to wife, I, Chief Milo Morai of Morai, will surely do so.

  Make up your mind, Dik Krooguh. Clan Krooguh’s loss will be the gain of Clan Morai! For,” he added shrewdly. knowing full well just how Horseclansfolk thought, what they truly valued in their lives, “the one characteristic that all of these adopted Dirtman castoffs seem to share is that they all have proved fine breeders; and as our kinsman here has but just remarked, we Kindred are precious few in these lands.”

  And that last was all that was required. Chief Dik Krooguh of Krooguh clasped an arm protectively around the girl, announcing loudly to all, “No, Uncle Milo, she will wed my nephew, Tim Staiklee ol Krooguh. The rite will take place immediately. You, Djahn Staiklee, hold your peace! That is a chief’s order. You mean well, I know, but I’m thinking that you fret needlessly in this matter.

  “Tim, boy, come closer, stand right there. Now, Bettiloo Hansuhn, would you be a woman of the Horseclans?”

  Telepathically coached by Ehstrah, Morai, Bettylou replied with a simple head-nod and softly spoken, “Yes, Honored Chief. I would become such.”

  Chief Dik returned her nod, smiled broadly, briefly took her swollen body into his arms and kissed her on each cheek, then full on the lips. Stepping back, he announced in a loud voice — a voice of such pitch as to rise even above the tumult of battle, as it often had in times past — Kinsfolk, this woman here beside me is Bettiloo Hansuhn of Krooguh. Although she was not born of the Kindred, still is she your kinswoman. Defame her, and you will feel my whip; offer her injury, and you will feel the edge of Clan Krooguh steel.”

  Turning back to her, Chief Dik said, almost conversationally, “Bettiloo Hansuhn of Krooguh, you no longer are a war captive. You are a freeborn clanswoman and, until wed, you are as one of my own daughters. My yurt and all things within it are free to your use.

  “But Sacred Sun does not like to shine upon women without men or men without women, for such is not natural or proper. Male needs female and female needs male that both may survive in a world which though often warm and comfortable is just as often harsh and pitiless. Also, as neither the bull nor the cow, the ram nor the ewe, can alone increase the herd or the flock, neither, alone, can the clansman or the clanswoman add to the figure strength of the clan.”

  Still lightly holding her with his one arm, the chief laid his other hand on Tim Staiklee of Krooguh’s shoulder. “Now, my nephew Tim here would have you as his first wife, which is a position of honor in the clans. Unless you, yourself, will it otherwise, you will never be less until Wind takes you.

  “Tim is seventeen or eighteen winters — I forget exactly which and it doesn’t matter anyway. He’s a good mind-speaker, a proven warrior and a skilled hunter, and he’s no novice bedmate — I’ll warrant he’s sired a few babes of his own already, were the truth known and did anyone care.

  “He owns some loot from his raidings, and I’m told that he’s an inborn skill at arrow-making and fletching, so even in his dotage he should be a real asset to his family and clan.

  “He’s not ill-featured, as any can see, he makes regular use of the sweat yurt, shaves his face and usually affects clean clothing.

  “Life is rarely easy, child, but it is less hard for two than for one alone, even less hard for many than for few; so I now ask you, Bettiloo Hansuhn of Krooguh: Will you here and now become the first wife of Tim Staiklee of Krooguh?”

  “I . . . I w . . . will, Honored Patri . . . Chief,” she replied.

  For a moment, all things — the figures of Tim, her new husband, the short, stocky chief, the folk gathered around, the outlines of the yurts beyond them — seemed to shimmer, then the trodden, dusty ground rushed up at her face and all of the world became a roaring, red-black nothingness, spiralling tightly and ever more tightly around and around with a pressure that would have been unbearable had it lasted a heartbeat longer.

  When she again opened her eyes it was to behold the inside of the roof of a yurt, but not the now-familiar Morai yurt. This new yurl appeared somewhat larger, more commodious. Gear and clothing and many other items hung from the roof supports, while some dozen or more of the wood-and-leather chests were arrayed around the circumference of the dwelling. Beyond the sleeping-rug on which she lay, she observed the floor to be covered in nothing more than the withered stubs of brittle dried grass.

  Not too far away, she could hear raucous voices raised in song and the sound of harps and drums and some wailing instruments she never before heard. When she made to prop herself up on her elbows, a brisk but not unkindly voice spoke from the shadows.

  “Stay there, girl.” said the deep-pitched female voice. “Don’t try to get up yet — you’re weaker than you think. You were ill treated and malnourished for far too long, and then that Ehstrah tried to work you to death today. Who can wonder that you fainted?

  “That half-wit husband of mine won’t come near to you, won’t allow any of the rest to. But despite his obsessions, he damned well knows better than to gainsay me. Ill you certainly are, but not a bit diseased or my name isn’t Lainuh Krooguh.

  “My husband’s concubine is skilled at brewing herbal teas, and that is what I have set her to. When she brings it, you drink it, all of it, for all it’s bitter as gall; then, when you waken, tomorrow, we’ll see to putting you to rights, else you’ll run the risk of dying along with your babe at the birthing.

  “I must now get back to the celebration, but the slave, Dahnah, will watch over you in my absence. Goodnight, my newest daughter-in-law. Drink all the tea, now.”

  Bettylou’s second awakening was to a bustle of activity all around her, with men and women and children rolling up sleeping-rugs and carrying them out of the yurt, then returning to lift down hanging items, p
ack and bear out chests and trunks and otherwise strip the dwelling down to the grass-stubble floor, Finally. Tim Krooguh came to squat by her side. When he had slipped one arm beneath her shoulders and the other under her knees, he stood up easily and bore her outside, while the woman who had brewed the medicinal tea for her rolled the rug and followed him, replacing it outside that Tim might once more stretch Bettylou upon it.

  “T . . . Tim . . .?” she quavered, and he turned back to her, smiling.

  “Yes, wife?”

  “What is happening? Is there something wrong? Have I . . . did I bring trouble to you too?”

  He laughed lightly. “Now how could you possibly bring on trouble, silly? No, Mother has just decided that the yurt has been in one spot for long enough. This happens at least once every moon, sometimes twice. You’ll get used to it.”

  A nude woman strode over to the two of them, the ever-present wind tugging at her still-dripping black hair. For all that Bettylou was certain she must be at least as old as the girl’s own mother, the body looked far more youthful, radiant in health, with little sag to the breasts and skin that, where wind and sun had not had their way with it, was even fairer than Bettylou’s own.

  She came to a stop between Tim and Bettylou and, while squeezing rivulets of water from handsful of her long hair, began to speak in a voice that the girl remembered from the previous night.

  “Well, you all woke her up, did you, despite my admonitions? Ah, the more fool I to expect that any of you know what working quietly means. You make more noise than a cattle stampede, I’d swear. I could hear you all thumping and bumping and huffing even while I was inside the sweat yurt!”

  “But, Mother,” said Tim, “my wife would have been awakened in any ease when I bore her out of the yurt.”

  Lainuh Krooguh sighed. “Did I not clearly recall the birthing of you, Tim, I’d wonder if you truly were my son, at times like this, anyway. What need was there to carry your wife out of the yurt at all? All that was needed was to have lifted the yurt from over her, carried it to the new location marked out this morning and refurnished it. Then you could have come back and fetched Bettiloo here, and she would have had much more sleep. Did no one of you think of so doing the job?” She sighed again, gustily, and shook her damp head, adding resignedly, “No, I suppose not. I thank Sun and Wind I’m here to think for you all.”

  Turning her piercing blue eyes on the recumbent girl, she spoke again in the brisk but kindly tone of the night before. “So you’re awake despite my best efforts. You must be wolf-hungry, and, well as I know my household, it will take them until at least dark to get the yurt moved and decently set up again. So get you up — if you need help in walking, Tim is here; for all else he and his siblings lack, they are all strong as bulls — and we’ll stroll over to my brother’s yurt for a bit of Chief Krooguh’s vaunted hospitality.”

  Dik Krooguh sat on his sleeping-rug, still wearing most of his feast finery. He looked as if he should have been buried days earlier. His face was gray and stubbled, his eyes were severely bloodshot, and the hands that held a tarnished cup of a medicinal tea were exceedingly tremulous. Moreover, he winced as from a buffet at even the tiniest noises.

  Many of the other inhabitants of the yurt still were prone on their own sleeping-rugs, and of the few who were up, most looked little better than the chief, going about their tasks slowly, ineptly and with many a piteous moan.

  Bettylou had never seen the like, and she mindspoke the unworded question to Lainuh, who beamed back. “Misuse, last night late, of several gallons of a restorative potion from the far south; it is prepared from a certain plant of the cactus family and is called taikeelah. Utilized properly, as the clan supply had been for some years, it is a valuable medicine, but guzzled in quantity as my brother and many of his household did last night, it brings on first gaiety, then deep sleep, then illness such as you see here.”

  Striding over to where the chief unsteadily sat, heedless of what or on whom her bootheels fell, Lainuh squatted beside her crapulous brother, took the silver cup from his weak grasp and held it firmly to his lips until he had drained it to the dregs. A moment later, he began to gag, and taking his arm, she led him, stumbling, out of the yurt, leaving Bettylou to her own devices in the midst of sleeping or terribly hungover near-strangers.

  “Oh, Wind and Sacred Sun, I’m dying. I know I’m dying, but it’s taking so long to die.” The bubbling, gasping half-moan emanated from a body lying at Bettylou’s vezy feet.

  Kneeling, the girl placed a hand on the sufferer’s forehead and found it hot, while the breath that wafted up into her face was foul, hot and rank.

  She looked around her to find that she was now the only erect occupant of the yurt, the only soul available to give aid or bare comfort to the obviously ill — possibly, deathly ill — man. So she set about it forthwith.

  As in the Morai yurt, so in this one; several canvas buckets were hung from the upper framework, and she examined each in turn until she located one that contained water, then searched among the dim clutter until she located a rectangle of cloth and a reasonably clean horn cup.

  With the one soaked, then wrung out and the other filled with water, she picked her way among the recumbent bodies back to the side of the ill man, He still moaned weakly, though he had not moved an inch since she had left his side.

  He gasped, then groaned when she laid the damp cloth on his fevered brow, his lips moved as if in speech, but no sound issued forth, and she was too preoccupied just then to try a mental probe of his mind with her newfound talent for such.

  Kneeling beside her patient. Bettylou propped his head up on the side of her knee and her free hand, then held the horn cup of water to his dry lips, but so maneuvering the vessel that he needs must sip rather than gulp the tepid fluid. When he had drained the cup, she carefully lowered his head and wiped his face with the damp cloth before replacing it on his brow.

  “. . . too good to me.” the man uttered half-audibly. “. . . best slave girl a man ever had. She was right, you know, Dahnah, dainmit, she’s most always right. Shouldn’t have drunk that vile Mehkikuhn concoction last night, not the first jug of it. But, hell. Dik is our chief, after all, and when he’s of a mind to imbibe, he will have company.

  “Where is herself, Dahnah? I’ll bet she’s fit to be tied this morning.”

  The croaking voice was in no way familiar; nonetheless, Bettylou realized from the words spoken that this patient of hers could be none other than her new father-in-law, Djahn Staiklee. he who had voiced so many vehement objections to her marriage into his family.

  “I am not your slave woman, Mr. Staiklee,” she said finally. “I am Bettylou Hanson, now wife of your son, Tim. Your slave woman is helping to move your yurt just now; your wife, Lainuh, has taken Chief Dik Krooguh outside to care for his illness.”

  “I hope he dies this moming,” snarled Staiklee viciously. “And if his hangover is one tenth pan as bad as is mine own, he just might. I can now understand why the traders call that damned taikeelah stuff ‘popskull,’ indeed I can.

  “And the old bugtit would mix it measure for measure with berry wine and drink it, yes he would, and he would chivvy every one of us into joining him in his suicidal madness, oh yes. I take back my words; I hope he doesn’t die this day — a mere death is too good for the likes of him.

  “So; herself is caring for him, eh? That’s typical, to be expected, that she would ignore me, her own husband, to give her comforts to Dik, instead. Her damned brother has always been of far more importance to our Lainuh than have I or her children or her grandchildren or anyone else, for that matter. Yet she begrudges me my one, single concubine, Dahnah, and will not hear any mention of my buying another. She treats me most unfairly, treats me like a . . . a . . .”

  “I treat you a damned sight better than you have ever deserved, Djahn Staiklee!” snapped Lainuh’s deep voice from behind Bettylou. “I know that you envy, have always envied, the time I spend with Dik, but I care
not how much you pout and natter on that account. Dik is my brother and I love him, and even if I did not love him, even if we two were not so closely related, still is he the chief. He has been and still is a good chief for our clan, but he is aging, is no longer in good health for all of his robust appearance, and I worry about him, as should you and everyone else.

  “That is why I so hate to see him unduly sicken himself as he did last night. You folks, the entire pack of you! Had you all refused to drink that stuff with him, had you simply arisen and gone back to your various yurts. he would not have guzzled that taikeelah, you know that; such is and has always been his way.

  “This morning, outside there, a few minutes ago, the chief of our clan retched up a quantity of bright red blood! He is now in the sweat yurt with Uncle Milo, Ehstrah Morai and a few others. As soon as Bettiloo and I have eaten, I intend to spend the rest of this day and as long else as it takes to heal my brother of the effects of his follies. I’ll send Dahnah, shortly, to help you back to our yurt.

  “I care not what use you make of yourself as long as I am away tending to Dik. Go hunting, if you wish; lead out a raid; it’s of no matter. But you were well advised to stay out of my sight and hearing for at least a week . . . maybe two!”

  Staiklee did just that. He left on a hunt the following morning, taking with him his second-eldest son, Djahnee, two of Chief Dik’s Sons and a few of his own cronies, along with two late-adolescent prairiecats and a sufficient quantity of horses to provide everyone with three mounts.

  Nor was his the first or the only such party to embark, for the feasters had consumed a goodly proportion of all of the meat and other foodstuffs in the camp, leaving little more than milk and cheese, butter and herb teas to sustain the folk until more could be brought in.

  Chief Milo took a party of young warriors — Tim’s eldest brother. Dikee, among them — several veteran prairiecats and a large remuda of horses and mules on a week-long ride that would bring them within raiding distance of a cluster of Dirtman villages to the southeast of the campsite.