A trio of small children, their hands linked together, ran screaming ahead of us and I reined Gryphon in sharply and pulled his head sideways, dragging him across the road before his hammering front hooves could knock down the fleeing bodies. He was fighting his curb chain again, trying to break into his smooth canter that would carry us swiftly through this panicked crowd. Sometimes I caught a flash of my mother’s pale face, bent over Grasshopper’s neck, or of Batu’s scale-covered helmet as they rode along.
‘The merchants are fleeing the city!’ Batu cried once, as we trotted closer together. We dodged rich men in embroidered gowns, and camel drivers running barefoot. The caravans were leaving our city, trying to avoid being trapped there by the approaching army, trying to get their trade goods safely away before Ershi fell into enemy control. Meanwhile, the valley’s farmers were abandoning their peaceful villages to crowd towards the safety of Ershi’s walls, trying to get their wives and children, their goats and sheep, behind the sandy battlements. But, I wondered, was the city a place of safety, as the villagers believed, or was it a trap that the merchants were wise to flee? I felt a shiver of panic at the thought of being held inside those high walls; my greatest fear was always of entrapment. My friend Lila owned a pair of finches that sang sweetly, hanging in their cage in a shaft of sunlight in the house next door to my father’s, but I hated the sight of their folded wings that never lifted into blue sky.
We are only going to fetch our horses, I reminded myself. Soon we will be back in the mountains again, free and safe.
The fear that eddied through the crowd had taken hold of Gryphon, and he no longer paid attention to my voice or to the tight pull of the curb.
‘I can’t hold him!’ I shouted to Batu; he was over to my right, half obscured by dust and a flock of sheep being driven by tribesmen in woolly astrakhan hats.
‘We’ll meet at the farm!’ Batu yelled back, coughing. ‘Where’s our wagon?’ I glanced over my shoulder but could see no sign of it in the pressing throng. Perhaps the servants were still searching for some place where they could cross the drainage ditch.
‘I don’t know! Try and stay near my mother!’
A herd of horses rushed up behind me, their eyes rolling white, their nostrils flaring, and Gryphon broke into a canter. The horses swept us along ahead of them; we were like a leaf riding on a spring flood. Fields of pea vines, and of melon plants, flashed past, and we clattered through the narrow streets of a village where people threw bundles of clothing, and pots and pans, out of their front doors in preparation for flight. A boy, with a willow crate containing a rooster and two hens, jumped away from Gryphon’s hooves. An old woman ran past in the opposite direction, shrieking words that I couldn’t hear above the din of hooves, the cries of animals. The wheels of a chariot spun past and I glimpsed the frightened faces of two Parthian women clinging inside it, their veils torn away in the wind of their flight.
Finally, Gryphon and I rushed down to the stretch of road beside the river. The water lay beside us, broad and rippling. This river ran down from the mountains, cold with melting snow, and sometimes swept across the valley in spring floods. Along with numerous smaller streams, it moistened the crops in the fields, filled the troughs where animals drank, and was diverted into aqueducts and channels to provide water for the city of Ershi. The crowd parted and I glimpsed a long procession of white-robed magi wending its way towards a fire altar built upon the riverbank. A white ox was held at the base of the rectangular altar, bellowing as though it knew its fate was to be sacrificed.
The priests are trying to ward off the army, I thought. They are appealing to Ahura Mazda for help, for the intervention of his glorious angel, Sraosha, leader of the forces of light.
Maybe I could push my way through the crowds and find a magus who would sing hymns over my mother, who would have the herbs to heal her from whatever evil power wrestled with her spirit. I fought Gryphon to a dancing walk as we approached the line of stately priests in tall felt hats with lappets that hung down over their ears. Now I was close enough to see their carefully curled hair, their freshly combed beards, the bundles of tamarisk twigs grasped in their hands. Light winked on the brooches pinning their cloaks. I leaned forward over Gryphon’s shoulder and opened my mouth. Now I was close enough to see the stern, inward-focused solemnity of the priests’ eyes.
Shyness seized me. I struggled to ask for help for my mother, but my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and no sound emerged between my parted lips. For a long moment, my stubbornness and my shyness fought inside my throat, the words bunched there, just behind my tongue. Then Gryphon broke into a trot again, and the crowd surged between me and the priests. I could do nothing but ride on in frustration. But anyway, I reasoned, I had already lost both my mother and Batu in the crowds. And Gryphon would not be stopped; he dodged around people and obstacles as though we were competing in a new mounted game. My legs gripped him desperately lest I fall off and be trampled underfoot.
Soon, very soon, we would find Swan!
I thought about how my mother’s horses would look, standing knee-deep in their pasture, gleaming golden in the sun like a kingdom’s newly minted coins. All our horses, our bays and sorrels, our duns and smoke browns, our chestnuts, all had the same sheen over their coats, the golden metallic shine that drew the eye to them in city streets or in the pastures. It was another special mark of the Persian horses; the Chinese spy would surely have told his emperor about this attribute. It was no wonder, I thought, half in pride and half in apprehension, that this faraway king had sent his troops over the roof of the world, through snow and drought, to bring home our horses for his cavalry to ride, and to carry his own soul to the Jade Terrace.
Now we trotted into the last village before the city. We clattered past low, flat-roofed houses; I saw a girl pulling a loaf of hot bread from an oven and wrapping it in her cloak to carry away. Goats and dogs scattered from Gryphon’s flying hooves. Now he seized the bit and dragged the reins from my hands for he knew we were almost home. He broke into a canter, scattering a flock of hens, sending donkeys loaded with barrels of wine into the gutter. He soared around the corner of the last house and swerved into the lane leading to our farm; the sandy walls containing the house and stable block stood dappled by the shade of poplar trees. We galloped up the final stretch of rutted lane, swerving past a flock of bleating goats, spotted white and brown. A guard dog ran out, lips drawn back over his gleaming teeth in a ferocious bark, but when he heard my voice, he yelped with pleasure and turned tail to sprint ahead of us. The wide double doors into the forecourt stood open, their surfaces carved with vines and running horses. Gryphon swerved through the doorway and, just in time, before it was scraped against the door post with its heavy hinges, I swung my left leg on to his neck. We shot into the courtyard and skidded to a halt in a shower of small stones by the water trough.
Swan, I am here! my thoughts cried. Where are you? You are safe now! Swan!
Chapter 5
‘Bring the horses!’ I yelled, expecting my mother’s men to come running, but the yard stood silent. I leaped from Gryphon and ran into the stable with the brown dog trotting at my side, thrusting his nose into my hand. Inside the stable, the mud brick stalls were all empty. Only straw glinted in slanting sunshine. Only dust motes turned to gold in its light. I ran back outside and crossed the yard to pound on the house door leading to the kitchen, but no one answered. I ran around to the back, alone now because the dog had gone to sniff at Gryphon’s legs. The small door that led to the fields clattered back against the wall as I pulled it open, my heart banging against my ribs.
‘Swan!’ I cried. ‘Swan!’
The pastures quivered with ripples of heat, as though they were turning into rivers. Nothing else moved. Although I squinted against the sun’s glare, I saw not a single mare with gently swollen belly, not a single foal with whiskery chin, not a single riding gelding with patient eyes. Not one golden coin of horse gleamed in the flowers of my mother
’s meadows.
My heart clenched into a fist.
I ran across our training ground but no young horses stood saddled in the shade, waiting their turn to weave between the lines of upright poles, to adjust their strides as they trotted over saplings laid upon the ground at equal distances.
‘Help! Help!’ I cried but no voice answered me. Where were my mother’s horsemen and their wives?
I tore back through the gate, letting it bang shut behind me, and took the stairs leading from the courtyard to the second floor in flying leaps. Below me, Gryphon sucked deeply at the water in the trough; now that we had reached home, he had grown quiet, seemingly unbothered by the fresh blood that trickled from his broken wounds. I pounded on the door at the top of the stairs. There was a long pause. Distantly, I could hear the pandemonium on the road through the valley; donkeys braying, horses whinnying, men shouting, even the faint chant of the magi at their altar by the river. I stared out over the flat rooftop of the stable, crying Swan’s name inside my head.
Surely she was there, somewhere, lying in the tall grass, hidden beneath a shady tree. Her pale face and gentle eyes hung before me, ghostly and beloved.
I rapped again on the door. Finally, it opened a crack and from the dimness inside the living quarters, Mina, one of the wives, peered out.
‘Kallisto!’ Her weathered face creased with surprise above the coarse cotton of her brown tunic as she pulled the door wider. ‘Is your mother here? The king has ordered all the valley’s best horses to be taken into the city and the men have –’
‘Swan!’ Her name broke from me in an anguished cry.
The woman’s dark eyes held mine for a heartbeat. ‘They have taken Swan too,’ she said.
‘No, not Swan!’
‘The king’s men came here,’ Mina continued, ‘with orders to bring all the elite horses into the city for protection, and for use in the cavalry. So Anoush, Kasra and Ahou have taken the mare herd and geldings; they will be safe at your home inside Ershi. The men must fight, and I am preparing now to flee into the city too. Where is your mother?’
‘I am here,’ she said, and I turned to see her standing halfway up the stair, her face white as a scrubbed stone. Sweat shone on the angle of her dusty cheeks, beneath her sunken eyes. Her right hand clutched her left arm where a stain of blood was vivid on her sleeve. Mina gave a cry of alarm.
‘Leave whatever you’re doing, and come with us now,’ my mother said to her. ‘Time is running short. We will harness the oxen to a wagon of grain, and you will drive it into the city for the cavalry horses. Kallisto, come.’
‘But Swan! Swan is in the city!’ I cried. ‘I won’t leave without her!’
‘We are not leaving without any of them,’ my mother said, and although her voice was flat with fatigue, her eyes were steady. ‘We stay together this time. We are going into the city to bring out our mares.’ She turned to Mina again and asked, ‘The two-year-olds?’
‘The men were going to return for them,’ Mina said. ‘They took the mares and foals, and the riding geldings, then they are coming back later today for the two-year-olds.’
‘Good,’ my mother said, and turned on the stairs. ‘Batu!’ she called, and he glanced upwards, the bruise around one eye fading to purple. Rain waited behind Gryphon for his turn at the water trough.
‘Batu, there is no need for us to take our stallion any further; his wounds are bleeding. You will take him with you. I have a small band of two-year-old mares in a far pasture, on the southern edge of my land, where there is a pond amongst the willows. Ride Rain, and find my herd. Drive the mares up into the valley where you killed your first wild boar – Gryphon will help you drive them. Hold them there in the valley until we come to join you. Do you remember the place?’
Batu nodded, already turning away from the wagon to fetch sacks of grain from inside the storage wing.
‘Water!’ my mother said suddenly, sharply, over her shoulder as I followed her down the stairs. ‘Find every jar in the place! Fill them and put them on the wagon!’
‘But we have water in the city!’ I said; then I glimpsed the suffering on my mother’s drawn face, and turned to obey her. Mina followed and together we scoured the kitchen, with its familiar smells of barley and mutton, while my mother searched the storage rooms. I grabbed a piece of flat bread and some cold chicken and shoved them, wrapped in grape leaves, into the cloth pouch slung around my waist with my dagger. Perhaps there would be time to eat the food later. I lifted a clay jar from a corner and lugged it to the irrigation channel that ran behind the house, and pushed it down into the water. It filled with a slow gurgle; I wanted it to fill immediately, I wanted to be running through the front gate at home, finding Swan. Mina and my mother bent beside me, filling more jars. Their dusty terracotta turned dark red with wetness. We lugged them to the wagon, stumbling under their weight, while Batu led my mother’s oxen from their enclosure and yoked them, patient and unresisting, still chewing their last meal, to the wagon. Mina dashed up the stairs one last time, her tunic flying, and tossed a bundle of clothing and blankets on top of the grain sacks that Batu had loaded on to the wagon. My mother handed Mina the long, blackhandled ox-whip of plaited leather, and she climbed on to the wagon and cracked it above the oxen’s backs.
I dug through my saddle pack, and found Gryphon’s halter which I pulled on over his bridle, ignoring his tossing head. He was not used to being handled with such haste. ‘Stand!’ I commanded sharply, and he lowered his head for me but pawed nervously at the baked mud of the yard. I secured the leather strapping by its bone buckle, and led Gryphon over to Batu, already mounted on Rain.
‘Don’t take the road,’ I said. ‘Gryphon will not be led along it. You know it is hard for anyone but my mother and I to handle him; he is bonded only to us and suspicious of others.’
‘I am going across country,’ Batu replied. ‘Now give me the rope.’
I handed him the lead and tugged Gryphon forward until his black and gold head was level with Batu’s thigh. It was hard to let go of the soft cotton lead rope, to send Gryphon away from me.
‘It’s only for a short time,’ Batu said. ‘And he will rest and heal in the valley. Then we can take all the horses back to camp. You can keep them there in safety until the army is driven from the valley!’
When I tried to smile, my lips quivered. I stooped quickly and pressed them to Gryphon’s silken cheek in a kiss that was like a plea.
‘Nothing for me?’ Batu cried teasingly. He puckered his lips, then laughter flashed across his face as he kicked his heels into Rain’s mottled sides. In a moment, he and the horses were moving across the courtyard to vanish from view.
‘Let’s ride!’ my mother said, and she slipped her boot into her foot loop and swung on to Grasshopper; I was standing close enough to hear the catch in her breath as her weight settled in the saddle. Then I jumped up, trying not to drag at her waist, and settled myself behind her, on Grasshopper’s loins. The mare snorted and gave one small hop, protesting the fact that she was being left behind by Gryphon and Rain, then my mother urged her towards the road.
We overtook Mina driving our wagon, laden with grain and water, and then it was left behind as Grasshopper trotted smoothly through the crowds and the dust. Ahead of us, I could see the two swells of land that marked the location of Ershi. The first hill held a tunnel that carried the main water channel leading into the city. On the hill’s far side, the water flowed from the tunnel and along the top of a high arched aqueduct. The second, larger hill was encircled with Ershi’s walls, and rose to a gentle peak crowned by the inner citadel where the king’s palace sprawled in a mass of plastered halls and reception rooms. To one side of the palace, water glittered in the reservoir that was fed from the aqueduct. On the hill’s lower slopes, columned temples and lavish merchant homes stood amongst shady trees. Lower still on the flat land beneath the hill, bazaars and market stalls spread between narrow alleys and crowded, mud brick houses.
; As we approached the city, the congestion on the road grew so great that we slowed to a walk. Heads clad in turbans, felt caps, and sheep fleece jostled past my dangling legs. Children stared up at me, their eyes beseeching and bewildered, their thumbs in their mouths. A camel pressed against Grasshopper, pushing her sideways through the crowd; its long golden coat brushed my arm as it turned its long neck, bellowing, its nose wrinkled around the wooden peg that pierced its nostrils. We came to a halt, wedged between a wagon of trussed sheep, and a group of soldiers in armour, spears carried upright in the crowd. A donkey brayed hysterically. Slowly we edged our way forward, threading between broken bales of fabric strewn across the road.
Now the great, sand-coloured wall of the city rose above us, rearing into the air like the side of a cliff, high above the tops of the walnut trees growing by the east gate. The wall was studded with tall, angular watchtowers with window slits for shooting arrows through, and crowned with rectangular battlements. Men in armour shouted on top of the wall, running to and fro against the brilliant sky. It was hard to imagine that any army could pose a threat to that great wall, so thick, so high, so well-manned. It was hard to imagine how you could escape if you were stuck inside.
People pressed against my legs. Horses snorted and gave shrill neighs of fear. Grasshopper hopped on the spot, nervous and edgy; she didn’t like the feel of being hemmed in. A clotted pool of people and wagons was jammed against the gate entrance, and along the base of the wall beneath the walnuts.
‘Hurry, hurry,’ I muttered under my breath, but my mother heard me.
The Horse Road Page 6
