The Horsemasters (19 page)

He did not see Morna, for which he was profoundly grateful. He wasn’t sure he could trust himself if ever he saw Morna again.

It was so familiar a sight that it cut into his heart: the easy companionship of the men, the braids they wore, the initiation marks on the muscular arms, the beautiful freedom of the young unmarried girls. The rhythm of life here was unlike the rhythm of life in any other tribe. For the first time in years, Ronan felt the desolation of the exile, the poignant ache for home that he thought he had exorcised high in the Altas, in the new home he had made for himself in the hidden Valley of the Wolf.

* * * *

Nel had been gathering herbs. Under Fali’s tutelage, she was learning to become a curing woman. Young as she was, she definitely had the gift for it, and because of Fali’s advanced age, it was Nel’s task to keep their supply of herbs well stocked. Lately, Nel had even begun to wonder if it might be possible to make some of them grow closer to her hut. Certain plants always grew in the same places; she had noticed that. Perhaps there was a way…

There was the faintest sound of cracking branches, and then something exploded out of the woods beside her. Nel gave a sharp cry and tried to retreat, using her basket to protect herself from the attack of what seemed to be an immense dog. Before she could even try to run, however, the dog reared, knocked away her basket, planted its enormous paws on her shoulders, and ecstatically began to lick her face and snap at her nose. Nel staggered back under his weight, righted herself, and saw the white muzzle and bright yellow eyes.

“Nigak!”

The wolf pretended once more to snap at her nose. Then he began to sniff her all over. His whole body was quivering with joy, his tail waving so hard it created a breeze.

“Nigak!” Nel said again, kicking aside her basket of herbs and reaching out to hug him. “Is it really you?”

The wolf was sniffing blissfully at her hair. Nel laughed unsteadily and staggered again under his weight. She removed his paws from her shoulders and returned them to the ground, knelt beside him and hugged him again. He was still quivering. “But if you are here, where is…” She looked up the track in front of her and then down the track behind. There was no sign of any human. Nigak rolled onto his back, stuck his four white feet up into the air, and whined to have his belly scratched.

Nel laughed again, still unsteadily. “Oh, but it is so good to see you!” she said, and buried her fingers in the soft fur of the wolf’s exposed belly.

“He has not forgotten you, minnow.” The deep voice came from the forest on her right, and Nel’s head whipped around. A tall shadowy shape was coming toward her from within the trees.

“Ronan?” She could scarcely recognize her own voice.

“Sa,” he said.

Nel was on her feet. “Ronan!” And she flung herself at him in much the same headlong way Nigak had flung himself at her.

“Ooof,” he said with a laugh, as he caught her. “You have grown bigger, Nel. You almost knocked the breath out of me!”

“I did not,” Nel said, still with her arms locked around his neck. She gazed up into his face with eyes like stars. “You are steady as a rock.” Her smile was radiant. “I thought you had forgotten me. I should have known… Oh, Ronan…” And she pressed her forehead into his shoulder as if she could no longer bear to gaze upon his face.

There came a whine from Nigak, as if he wanted to recall her attention. He began once more to sniff at her. Nel lifted her face out of Ronan’s shoulder. She was crying.

“Don’t cry, minnow,” Ronan said. He wiped away two tears with the tip of his left forefinger, and scanned her face. “You have grown up,” he said slowly.

She sniffled and swallowed in a manner that was not grown up at all. “I was initiated at the Moon of the New Fawns.”

The Moon of the New Fawns was after Spring Fires. “So,” he said, “that is why you were not at summer camp. I looked there first before I came here.” He took her face between his thin, muscular hands and tilted it up for his scrutiny.

Nel gazed unabashedly back. He had changed, too, she saw, though not so dramatically as she. His face looked sterner than she remembered. The arched nose and high cheekbones seemed more prominent, the line of the mouth harder. His hair was shorter and no longer worn in a braid.

“I have heard about the Tribe of the Wolf,” she said softly, still gazing at him with delighted wonder. “You did what I said you should do—you found your own place and made your own tribe.” Then, as he looked puzzled, she asked, “Do you not remember, Ronan?”

His eyes suddenly opened wide. “That is right, You did say that…” He laughed. “I had forgotten.”

“How could you have forgotten?” Nel demanded indignantly. “You did it!”

He smiled, his face blazing into vivid life, and all of a sudden he looked like the Ronan she remembered. “So I did. And now I have come back for you, just as I said I would.”

She heaved a great sigh. “I thought you had forgotten me,” she confided. “I have been so worried! I should have trusted you to keep your promise.”

The shadow of something came and went across his face. “Of course I did not forget you,” he said. He looked her over again. “I cannot believe how much you have changed!”

“I’ve grown taller,” she said shyly. “I used to look into your chest; now I look into your chin.”

“It is more than that.” She realized with shivery delight that he was looking at her chest. “It’s a good thing Nigak recognized your scent,” he said. “I’m not sure I would have known you.”

“But I’m still Nel,” she said, anxious to reassure him that her feelings for him were the same. “I haven’t changed inside, Ronan.”

“That is good to hear,” he said, and did not smile.

“Did you say you were at summer camp?” she asked.

He nodded.

Nel chewed her lower lip. “Have you talked to anyone else from the tribe?”

“Na.”

“If Arika should learn that you are so near…,” Nel gave a quick, hunted look over her shoulder.

All the light left his face. “I am not afraid of the Mistress, Nel.”

“She also has learned of the Tribe of the Wolf, and she does not like it.”

“Stop chewing your lip,” Ronan said. His mouth looked hard. “What the Mistress may like or dislike does not concern me anymore.”

Nel stopped chewing her lip. “Where are the rest of your party?” she asked.

“I came alone.”

“Alone!” She glared at him, her eyes very green. “You should not have come alone!”

“I have Nigak,” Ronan said. On hearing his name, the wolf left Nel and came to thrust his nose into Ronan’s hand. With his free hand Ronan smoothed the fur on Nigak’s forehead. “Do you still have Sharan?”

Nel’s face gave him his answer before she spoke. “Na,” she said in a constricted voice. “She went out hunting one day and just never returned.”

His hand stilled on Nigak’s forehead. “I am sorry, minnow,” he said gently.

She was gazing steadily at the leather strings that tied his buckskin shirt at the throat. “Perhaps she found a mate and decided to stay with her own kind. I hope that is what happened.”

“I hope so too.”

A little silence fell. Then Nel raised her eyes and said, “Were you wanting me to come away with you right now, Ronan?”

“At this very moment, do you mean?”

She nodded seriously.

“I was planning to give you time to collect some of your things, Nel.” He sounded amused.

“My things don’t matter, but I think it would be better to wait until tomorrow. Fali will miss me if I don’t return shortly, and she is sure to send some of the men to look for me. It will be wiser if we give ourselves a good head start.”

“I agree,” he said.

“I have to help Fali with a curing ceremony tonight, but I will meet you early tomorrow morning in the clearing near the stunted pine,” Nel said. “We can make our plans then.”

“All right.”

She slipped her arms about his waist and gave him another hug. “I have been so lonely without you, Ronan!” She looked up. “I am so glad that you have come.”

“Sa,” he said, gazing seriously into her eyes. “It is good to be with you again, minnow. Very good.”

Chapter Fourteen

Nel did not sleep all night. At the sound of the first bird, she arose without disturbing Fali and made herself tea. One of the chief advantages that had fallen to Nel as Fali’s assistant was that the Old Woman had removed her from the hut of her stepmother. Fali was still asleep when Nel left the hut on silent feet and made her way into the forest.

Nigak was not at the clearing when Nel arrived. Ronan was alone, eating the bird he had cooked for breakfast. He looked up as she materialized out of the woods.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Sa. I only had tea.” She crossed the clearing to sit on her heels beside the small cookfire. He handed her some of the partridge he had roasted.

“Where is Nigak?” Nel asked. She pulled off a small piece of roasted bird and put it in her mouth.

“He went hunting. He will be back.”

Nel ate the morsel of food, then licked her fingers. Ronan watched with smiling eyes as she pulled off another piece and put it in her mouth. A peaceful silence fell as the two of them ate their breakfast.

“So,” Ronan said, when he had thrown the last of the small bones into the fire, “tell me. How does it go with the Tribe of the Red Deer?”

Nel said, “You have cut off your braid.”

He looked at her. “Sa, I have cut off my braid. How has Morna been behaving herself?”

“Why?”

He glared in exasperation. “Because I want to know!”

“I mean why did you cut off your braid?”

Ronan gave in. “At the time it seemed the appropriate thing to do.”

Nel continued to regard him thoughtfully.

He said, “I cannot believe the way you have changed.”

“Surely you did not expect me to be still a child, Ronan?”

He frowned. “But even your face is different, Nel. You used to have a pointy little face, all sharp bones and angles. Now…” He shook his head in bewilderment.

“Well, you are different, too,” she said. “And it is not just the braid.”

His expression hardened. “A lot has happened to me in the last few years.”

Nigak came cantering into the clearing. As soon as he saw Nel, he halted, his ears went up, and his tail began to wave. “Nigak!” Nel said, holding out her hand, and the wolf tore across the clearing, stopped, whined, and flipped on his back.

The thin look left Ronan’s mouth, and he laughed. “Evidently you don’t look different to Nigak at all.”

Nel was scratching Nigak’s belly, and she bent her head to whisper something in the wolf’s ear. Her braid fell forward across her shoulder, exposing the soft, tender skin of her nape.

The only sound in the clearing was the murmur of Nel’s voice and Nigak’s little whines of pleasure. When finally she raised her head, Ronan was looking at her with an odd expression in his eyes. It disappeared almost as soon as she saw it, and he asked quickly, “Do you still live with your father and stepmother? Or have you moved to the women’s cave?”

“I live with Fali,” Nel said. Nigak pushed her hand with his head, and she bent once more to bury her face in the wolf’s neck. “I missed you too, Nigak,” she whispered. “I missed you too.”

“Fali?” Ronan said.

“Sa.” Nel straightened up and Nigak went to stretch out beside Ronan, his long white muzzle resting with familiar trust on Ronan’s thigh. “It happened shortly after you left. Fali began to teach me her skills of curing, and then she took me to live in her hut so that I could learn even more.”

“What did Arika say to that?” Ronan asked slowly.

Nel looked surprised by the question. “Nothing.”

“And Morna?”

“Oh, Morna did not like it at all, but that is because Morna does not like me. She knows I don’t believe her tale about you. In fact, I am thinking there is but a handful of people in the whole tribe who do believe it, Ronan.”

“That is not how it seemed to me three years ago,” Ronan said bitterly.

“It was Arika’s word that prevailed on that day,” Nel assured him. “Not Morna’s. The Mistress wanted an excuse to send you away.”

“But why?” For the first time since the day he had walked away from his home, Ronan put the question that had tormented him. “Why did they let her do it if they did not believe it?” Dark shadows stained the skin beneath his eyes. “Why did Neihle not stand up to her?”

“I asked him that once,” Nel answered. She paused, her memory summoning up that scene between the nearly hysterical child she had been and the heartbroken man who had been Neihle. “He told me that he understood why Arika had done it, that she had banished you because she feared that when she was dead you would wrest the rule of the tribe from Morna.”

Ronan said, “He knows what Morna is. Neihle has no use for Morna!”

Nel sighed. “I am thinking it was not in Neihle to go against his sister. She is sacred to him, Ronan. She is sacred to all the tribe. She is as the Mother to them.”

The shadows under his eyes looked like bruises. “In the Tribe of the Wolf I have people from the plain. The tribes there still follow the Way of the Mother, even though they are led by a chief.”

“Fali has told me this,” Nel said.

He looked surprised. “Has she?”

She nodded. “She says that is why Arika thinks it is so important for the Tribe of the Red Deer to keep its Mistress. Fali says it is the only tribe she knows of that is led by a woman.”

Ronan looked broodingly into the low-burning fire. Nel watched him in silence. Finally he asked, “Has Morna borne children?”

Nel shook her head.

The bruised look began to fade from beneath Ronan’s eyes. He looked so different without his braid, Nel thought. He did not look like a boy any longer. She asked, “What god do you follow in the Tribe of the Wolf?”

“Most of my people are from tribes of the Kindred and make their prayers to Sky God, but as I said before, there are a number from the plain who follow the Mother.”

“And you?”

“I follow the Way of Ronan,” he said, dislodged Nigak from his thigh, got to his feet, and began to pace restlessly around the clearing. It was then that she noticed the limp.