Daughter of Lir (33 page)

“You’ll drive the chariot,” the man said, “and teach me as
you go.”

“To drive it?” Minas asked.

The man shook his head. “To make it. Tell me how it’s made.
How the harness is made, how it should be fitted to the horses. I changed this
one—see, I shortened this here, and made this stronger here. If the bit were
bronze instead of hardened bone—”

“You have a maker’s mind,” Minas said.

The man nodded. “I’m a smith. I forge copper and gold and
bronze.”

“You . . . forge bronze?”

“Yes. My name is Bran,” the man said. “Yours, we all know.”

“And if I won’t teach you?”

“She said,” said Bran, “that I was to teach you of bronze.”

Minas sucked in a breath. “But I thought—”

“That all the smiths were on the other side of the river?”

“I thought you were all fighting men.”

“I can fight if I have to. I’d rather be making things.”

Minas pondered that while he harnessed a team that had, on a
time, belonged to his brother Adis: a handsome pair of duns, full brothers to
his own stallions who were still among the People. He was aware of Bran’s eyes
on him, marking every move he made. The smith had watched the chariotmakers in
just the same way.

It was rather remarkable how quickly they broke camp and set
off to the westward. Now that they had Rhian with them, they were in haste to
return to their own country. The pace they set was the pace the People set on
raids, when they would travel as far and fast as they could without exhausting
the horses.

These people did not take poorly at all to riding in
chariots. They were skilled riders of horses, and they were quick to learn.
They loved the wind of speed, the roll and rattle of wheels, the creak and snap
of the traces.

“Our forefathers were horsemen of the steppe,” Rhian said.
She had taken Bran’s place in the chariot after a pause to breathe and to water
the horses. Bran was riding with Mabon, teaching him, no doubt, what Minas had
taught him through the long morning’s ride.

Rhian did not ask to be taught anything. She seemed inclined
to teach instead. “Long ago,” she said, “in the dawn of the world, horses came to
us, and horsemen who thought to be our conquerors. Our foremothers took them
into the cities, and lay with them and taught them the way of the Goddess. And
now we are all one people.”

“Is that what you expect to do with us?”

“Do you think we won’t?”

“I think,” he said, “that your horsemen were not as strong
in war as the People, or as firmly bound to the gods of blood and slaughter.”

“You are not a bloody-minded murderer.”

“No?”

“No.” By accident or design, the chariot’s motion swayed
them together. He felt the softness of her breast against his arm.

He set his teeth. “We have never been conquered, not ever,
not since the gods begot our ancestors on the daughters of men. You may conquer
me, because I am weak and I am mortal, but you will never conquer my People.”

“We may not, but the Goddess will.”

“If she chooses.”

“Did she not bring you here?”

‘Maybe,” he said, “I am the arrow in the heart of your
people.”

“Maybe you are,” she said, with a shift of mood that left
him speechless. “Maybe that is the Goddess’ will, too.”

Guardians waited at the river of souls: a company of men
and armed women, watching over the sea of grass from a lofty camp, a fortress
new-built on the steep bank of the river. Their outriders met the chariots half
a day’s journey from the river, greeting them with the same wild joy with which
the warriors from Lir had greeted Rhian.

Minas did his best not to gape at the sight of women in
armor. They made no such effort themselves. Their stares were frank, their
fascination unmarred by either fear or shyness. They grinned at him, bold as
young men of the tribes, and said words he did not understand, but he could
guess what they meant.

When he saw the high wall looming above the river, at first
he thought they had come to the city called Lir. It was some little time before
he understood that it was not even a village; it was a distant outpost, half a day’s
journey downriver from the last of their cities, with half a hundred warriors
in it, and as many of them were women as men. They lived inside those walls,
not in tents but in round houses built of precious wood and willow-withies and
reed thatch. All their weapons were bronze, and the trappings of their horses.

These people were rich beyond the dreams of kings. What had
seemed great wealth and easy excess on the steppe was proved here to be a
notable measure of restraint. His captors had been concealing the true extent
of what they were, and what they had.

When the rest of the People saw what was here, even in this
outpost of the realm, they would want it with all their wild hearts. Minas did
his best to keep his eyes to himself, to keep his hands from twitching toward
so much bronze, so much silver and gold, so much pure unheeding extravagance.

The feast of welcome was, they professed, a poor thing, a
rough makeshift for a camp of war. The bread was finer than any he had eaten.
There was cream and honey, an abundance of fruits, fish from the river, meat,
cheese, flesh of birds, eggs prepared in half a dozen ways, cakes both sweet
and savory, wine of more sorts and flavors than he had known existed. There was
so much of it, and all so strange, that he barely touched it.

Nor was he set where a slave would have been among the
People: bound with the rest of the captives, fed what leavings there were after
the People were done. He had been given rich garments to wear, ornaments of
gold, and a place at the feast between Rhian and the commander of the garrison,
who was a woman. If he had come to them as a prince of his people, he could
hardly have been accorded more honor than they gave him as a slave.

The women were open in their admiration. They all, it seemed,
found occasion to wander past him, and excuse to touch him, especially his
hair. They said a word when they did it, a word that, he thought, meant
“Copper.” They touched his cheeks, too, wondering at the lack of beard in a man
of his age; one, bold beyond belief, proved to her full satisfaction that he
was not a eunuch. He regarded her in shock. She laughed and kissed him on the
mouth and danced away.

It was all he could do not to break and run with his jewels
clutched in his hands. He was too proud for that. Too proud to complain to the
woman who had bought him, either, though she sat next to him and said nothing
while the women of her people made a plaything of him.

The end was merciful. A young person who appeared to be a
servant—male, somewhat to his relief—conducted him to one of the round houses.
It was mostly one large room, but there were smaller rooms divided by walls of
wicker.

One of these, the servant indicated, was his. There was a
pallet in it, raised on a wooden frame, and a box that proved to be full of
fine weavings, and a cluster of clay lamps; and a jar with water in it, and a
cup of fine pottery, and in a niche in the wooden wall, a small carved image.
It was incontestably, overwhelmingly female, with great round breasts and great
round belly and deeply carved sex; but it had no face.

This must be the Goddess who ruled beyond the river. Had
they set her on guard over him? He felt no more confined than he had before he
found her in her niche. It seemed she was like the mortals who served her:
light-handed, easygoing, but in her heart implacable.

He bowed to her only half in mockery. Almost he did not
undress in front of her, but she had no eyes. He stripped out of the beautiful
borrowed garments and the collar and armlets of heavy gold, and lay on the
pallet.

Rhian’s bronze bell chimed softly in his ear. He closed his
fingers about it. He was surprised, and more than a little, to be alone here.
Even if Rhian would not come seeking him, he would have thought one or more of
the other women would have done it. From all he knew of these people, there was
nothing shocking in a woman’s coming to a man’s bed.

He did not like to admit that he was disappointed. These
dark full-breasted women were delectable. Part of him wanted to hate them,
because they were so like Etena who had sold him and Rhian who had bought him.
But they were beautiful, and however little beard he might have to offer the
razor, he was a man. He had not lain with a woman in close on two moons’
turning—since the second time he lay with Rhian, outside the camp of the
People.

He lay on his belly. It was chill in the room, the first
breath of autumn along the vale of the river, but he was a warrior of the
People. Cold was nothing to him. Maybe it would cool the heat in his loins.

He had never slept in walls before. They had none of the
motion about them that tent-walls had. They stood stiff and still even in the
flicker of lamplight. Sounds came through them muffled or not at all. He was
both more and less aware of the people about him, all crowded within the walls
of the fort, but separated from one another by the walls of their houses. He
felt utterly alone and yet crowded beyond endurance.

He was not under guard. When he escaped the room, he found
the outer room full of sleepers, men and women mingled without regard for
either modesty or propriety. He slipped through them with a hunter’s skill, out
into the dark and the starlight.

The wind blew soft across the sea of grass. The moon was
riding high. Minas sat on the wall and gazed eastward. He had passed a guard on
the way up, an armored woman who greeted him with a perfect lack of either
surprise or alarm.

If he rode out tonight, he wondered, would anyone stop him?

Something stirred out in the moonlight. It might have been a
wolf. It might have been a man with a crooked foot, limping through the tall
grass, white face lifted to the moon and the loom of the wall.

Minas thought he might be dreaming. And yet Phaiston seemed
very real, both as wolf and as man. He had always been quick on his feet, even
the crippled one. He paused at the foot of the wall and stood staring up. His
eyes had a faint gleam in them, as if they had kept the wolf’s semblance while
the rest of him walked as a man.

“Brother wolf,” Minas called down softly.

“Brother stallion,” Phaiston called up. “That’s a tall fence
you’re shut in.”

Minas had come up with the help of a ladder. The guard had
gone round the curve of the wall. She did not come running back when he drew
the ladder up and, balancing it precariously, brought it to the place where
Phaiston still stood. Minas was a little surprised that he had not melted into
the moonlight.

He climbed up not too clumsily. There was no mistaking the
reality of him now: he was dressed in a filthy wolfskin with the snarl of its
head for a hood, hung about with bones and beads and scraps of fur and
feathers, and surrounded by a sharp animal reek.

“You walked a long way,” Minas observed.

“Mostly I ran four-footed.” The shaman turned slowly about.
His nose wrinkled. He spat. “Pah! This place stinks of women’s magic.”

“That surprises you?”

“It’s strong.” Phaiston sneezed. “You’re dead, you know.”

Minas raised his brows. “I am?” He drew a breath, held it,
let it go. He pinched his arm hard. “The dead breathe? They feel pain?”

“You’re dead to the People. Nothing came living through the
storm of fire. The steppe is ash. Everything burned. Your raiders, your horses,
your chariots—all gone. The king lost a dozen sons and one. Great was the
mourning, nine days of ashen grief. Etena led the chorus of women in the long
dirge.”

“Etena? Not Aera?”

“Aera has shut herself away in her father’s tent. No one can
come to her or speak to her. Her grief is absolute.”

This was not real, no. Minas felt nothing but a kind of dim
amazement. “Dias?"

“He’s king’s heir now," said Phaiston.

“He would hate that,” Minas said. “Oh, he would loathe it.”

“What, he should have thrown himself on the pyre of your
remembrance?"

“Gods forbid," said Minas. “He never wanted to be king.
King’s brother, king’s right hand—that was the height of his happiness. All the
privilege, none of the dull duty. Do you know how much he hates sitting in
judgment?”

“He’s judge of the tribe now,” Phaiston said. “Who else is
there? The rest of your brothers who live are children. Your naked goddess
killed the three eldest, shot them with her bow. Her men killed the rest who
had passed the rite of manhood.”

Minas’ shoulders tightened. “Rhian killed three of my
brothers?”

“An arrow in the heart, an arrow in the throat, an arrow in
the eye. Quick as that, and cold-hearted as any man.”

Minas sank down against the rim of the wall. He could feel
those arrows in his own body. And yet he mustered a flare of anger. “How do you
know any of this? How can you? You’ve been on the steppe as long as I have.
Longer. What do you know of what passes in the tribe?”

Phaiston rattled his bone necklaces and grinned as a wolf
grins. “What, king’s son? No gratitude? Here I came half across the world to
bring you news and offer wisdom, and you call me a liar. It’s lucky for you I’m
a shaman and not a warrior, or I’d slit your throat for that.”

“You could try,” Minas said sweetly.

“Ah, and what’s the use in killing a dead man?” Phaiston
prowled along the wall. “Trusting people, aren’t they? Anybody could get up
here.”

“Maybe,” Minas said. And after a pause: “Is it true what you
said? You can’t cross the river?”

“Did I say that?”

“In a dream,” said Minas.

“Dream-sendings can’t cross that wide a river.”

“But you—in your body—you can?”

Phaiston tilted his head and peered at Minas through
narrowed eyes. “Why would I want to do that?”