The Foretelling (5 page)
That day, Io applauded my bear riding. My little sister, she thought everything I did was wonderful.
We went back through the tall grass. We didn't talk about where I had come from or where she had come from. But I knew she had been right that first day. We were sisters. We had both come from the place of sorrow, and that bound us together, moreso than blood.
One day I went to the smith. I asked him to make a special bridle and stirrups for Io, so that she would not be afraid of horses. And I wanted a scythe for her that was just like mine.
I will make them,
he said,
but Io's not like you. She'll never ride. She'll never see battle.
If you can see her future, what of mine?
You ‘re the one who can see it,
the smith said.
The smith picked up sand and threw it into the fire. The dust burned blue.
That was nothing,
I said.
Watch more carefully,
the smith told me.
Again he reached for a handful of our yellow earth. Again, it turned blue in the fire. And then I saw it. I was riding east, all by myself, into a snowstorm. Behind me were warriors. I outdistanced them, but when I turned I saw there were women behind me, weapons raised. My people.
You know nothing,
I said.
Make Io the bridle. And make sure the scythe is as beautiful as mine.
I walked away. Still, I couldn't stop thinking of the fire-image. There was a world out there I knew nothing of. When I tried to question Penthe about the lands she'd seen, she only said,
Be glad you're here with your mother the Queen.
I brought my sister Io the bridle when the smith was done, and she wept.
It's too good for me,
she said.
You're the sister of the Queen-to-be,
I told her.
I went to my mother and knelt before her, asking her to give Io a horse, and she did. I was frightened to do this. I thought she might turn away, but the Queen heard me out. She looked at Penthe before she said yes, then smiled. I think the gift was more for Penthe's sake than for me or for Io, but that didn't matter. The mare was a roan, red like Io's hair. My sister loved the horse. She combed it and sang to it. She used its hair for her thread so that everything she sewed was red.
But she didn't want to ride. About that, the smith seemed to be right. And she kept the scythe that had been decorated with bees and bears, identical to mine, in a felt blanket as though it were an amulet rather than a weapon.
It was at this time that I became afraid of my dreams. The darkening color of the sky, the stars above, both had become my enemy. I was exhausted, but afraid of the night. I had been dreaming of the black horse again, the Angel of Death. I had been thinking of the vision I'd seen in the smith's fire.
I went to see Deborah when I stopped sleeping. She took me into the woods, to the place where prophecy could be found, if you knew what you were looking for. It was the place where the wind came to rattle your bones. We both drank the mixture the priestess made of mares’ milk and other things. Things no one should drink if they don't want to know the truth.
Deborah threw the augury, the stones and bones she used to read fortunes. She sat back on her heels with a look I hadn't seen on her face before.
I see your enemies,
she said.
Do any of them have yellow eyes?
I thought perhaps I might have to fight the people of the fifty cowards. For that fortune, I would be grateful.
They are familiar. Look for yourself.
It was a blur to me. I bent close to see.
They're following you on horseback,
Deborah said.
No men did that.
There was a blue line in the center of the augury, the symbol for our people.
My own people turned against me. It was the same fortune I had seen in the smith's fire.
Deborah was so old that the ravens came to sit with her in the evenings to ask her questions. The line between this world and the next was so thin, she could see right through it. She carried her wisdom close to her, but I was brave enough to ask for a tiny bit.
Is there any way to change your fortune?
I asked.
I've heard of it.
Well, if it can be done, I'll manage it,
I told her. To sound brave was to be brave sometimes.
You'll see it with your own eyes.
She was a priestess. I should have kept my head bowed when I addressed her, but I did not.
Deborah laughed at my nerve.
I hope I live till then, child,
she said to me.
I hope that you do, too.
I
N THE COUNTRY OF THE QUEEN
we did not disobey. We did not even think of it. Except for me. Inside, I had a kernel of something that was made out of fire. Maybe that was where my yellow eyes came from. Maybe I hadn't inherited them from any man; maybe they were from the center of my own being.
I did as I pleased, ignoring my chores. I should have been caring for the horses with Astella, but I did not. I should have been watching over the bees with Cybelle, but I avoided that work as well.
I was spending all of my time riding again. I was the Dream Rider, true enough, and although Sky needed no further training, it was my sister the bear I taught to act like a horse.
If any man had seen me as we practiced, he would have thought I was a demon.
As I might have been.
I was wild, I admit that. I drank mares’ milk and so I believed myself to be part horse. I thought myself to be half-bear as well now, invincible, more ferocious than the warriors who as girls made the decision to sear off one breast, ensuring that when they pulled the bow back it would rest flat against their hearts. They were coated with the paste of red flowers, in a trance when the hot iron was placed against them, in a half-trance for days afterward.
I did not have to make that decision; I was the Queen-to-be and must be good at all things, not only warfare. I knew my place was on the throne of bones we carried back and forth across the steppes.
But now, something had changed.
I didn't trust my people the way I had before my future had been told. As the Queen-to-be, I should have had everything, but my hands seemed empty. I'd never been close to the other girls my age; now I moved away even from Io. When she tried to follow me, I told her I needed time and solitude in order to train Usha. Io left me in the woods with my bear. But I could tell, she didn't believe me.
She could sense the doubt I had about my place in our world even if I didn't speak such things aloud.
One day my mother's sister Cybelle came to see me. She wore golden bracelets along her arms. Bees followed her; they buzzed around her hair, which had been plaited with honey. The bear, which had grown more fierce in the woods and less accustomed to people, made a happy noise to greet Cybelle the way she did when I brought her supper. My aunt was that sweet, smelling of clover and honey.
Cybelle told me that people had begun to talk about me. Why was I by myself so much? Why did I not give more service to the Queen?
What does it matter? The Queen doesn't like to look at me.
The Queen looks into the future, at the next war,
Cybelle told me.
A Queen needs to lead; that's what is expected of her. Above all else, above her own life and whomever she loves. A Queen has no time for love.
Cybelle was the sort of person who seemed soft, and then the next moment she was hard and fierce. There was nothing that frightened her. She had been stung a thousand times by our neighbors the bees, and had never once cried out. It was her duty to have the dying brought to her after a battle, those who would be better off in the next world than in this one, and to send them on their journey. She had a gold dagger she used at such times; she never once flinched.
Do you think you will ever be ready to lead us?
Cybelle asked me.
Do you think you're able?
Do you question that?
I felt hot with anger. I'd thought Cybelle valued me as something more than sorrow.
You're the one who questions it,
my aunt said.
After Cybelle had left I wondered if my mother had sent her. If the words Cybelle had said had been formed in another's mouth. A Queen who didn't trust me to follow or to lead.
Although I had always assumed I was the Queen-to-be, I wasn't so sure others were in agreement. I needed to test myself, make myself stronger. I needed to follow the path of the bear. To stand and fight for what I wanted. But what was that? Maybe because of the fifty cowards I had fifty thoughts in my head. I who was supposed to lead dreamed of the black horse and heard our enemies’ death cries in my sleep.
I didn't know what I wanted, but even then I knew one truth that couldn't be undone. A Queen has but one thought:
These are my people.
All through my sixteenth summer I searched for a way to change my fortune, to be a leader, to follow my Queen, to stop doubting myself, to wake up from my dreams. I went past the pasturelands and into the forests in the hopes that the goddess would guide me. Wherever I went, Usha followed. My sister the bear was slower than my sister-horse, so we were slow with her. The ride became a dreamy thing, and that is never good.
Dreams should stay where they belong, inside the spirit, inside the night.
But that's not what happened. One day it was green and I was happy just to be with my horse and my bear. I was foolish enough to do what a warrior must never do. I closed my eyes.
They were upon me the way vultures are upon the dying, the dreaming, the already dead. Four red-haired men who all seemed like one to me. One swarm, one demon, one thing tattooed with red henna, the owner of dozens of arrows and too many axes to count. I could hear someone screaming, and it was me. For the first time I truly understood fear — it was like bees under my skin, stinging, stinging. The enemy fell on me and dragged me from my horse, which was invisible in winter and in spring, but not now. Now my horse was as easy to see as the endless sky.
They grabbed me so hard I heard something break. My heart. My soul. I thought of my mother with the fifty cowards, one of them my father, then blinked that thought away. I was not just anyone. I reached for my scythe and killed one quickly, then another was on top of me; I could feel the heat from him. He started to say something in his language, which sounded like the grunting of wild dogs. He must have thought I was listening to him. He gave me just enough time to reach for my scythe, that beautiful harsh weapon, which I brought down so hard I could hear him shatter inside.
I knew these men could not have gotten past Usha; she would have fought to her death. As she did and was now doing. She stood on her hind legs, her mouth open, showing her huge teeth, fighting for me and for herself. But I'd made a mistake. I'd let Usha believe she was a horse; she had no idea of her own strength. She'd never fought like a bear before.
I could see two men upon Usha with axes until the world looked red. I went after them screaming, the scream like bees in my mouth. One of them grabbed me by the throat. His fingers were hot, burning.
From the corner of my eye, I saw someone else. A boy with dark hair like mine. He came round quietly, like a dream, picked up an axe from one of the fallen, and split open the head of the man who was tearing my clothes from me.
The last red-haired man, the one who'd finished off Usha, we chased down together. Through the tall grass. We didn't speak but we planned it. We looked at each other, nodded, understood each other completely. The boy went to the right, I went to the left, the side of the goddess, the she-bear, the bee.
The old women have said it should never give pleasure to kill an enemy, so I will not tell the truth. I will never say how the war cry sounded in my mouth; it was a joyful thing, such sweetness I nearly choked from the taste.
I whistled to call my mare and she came across the grass. Sky was nervous and danced a bit, but she was used to the scent of blood. She let me grab the bridle and take the blanket from her back to wrap around myself. My shirt had been torn away, and I should have been shivering. I should have felt shame. I felt neither of those things. Only victory.
I didn't understand all that the boy said, but enough to determine that the red-haired men were from the north storm country. They had been murdering anyone they met on the steppes, including some from among the boy's people. This boy was taller than me, but the same age. He followed when I walked back to where Usha was. Then I did a terrible thing. I should have cut out my sister-bear's heart to eat so I could honor her. Instead I did what a warrior should never do: I dropped to my knees and wept.
Something was over. Not just the bear's life. Something in mine.
The boy stood there, still, watching me. He had no weapons of his own, only an axe that had belonged to one of the red-haired men. This axe he threw away, as though it were unclean. He did not seem to mind that he was defenseless before me. I could have killed that boy. But I had no wish to do so. This boy's people were a tribe of wanderers who had lost their way long ago and who now traveled endlessly; he had been everywhere and knew bits of most languages. Now he started to sing one of his people's songs. It was a song to Usha's spirit, I understood that much.