The Horsemasters (21 page)

Fali regarded her steadily, and Nel sustained that shrewd gaze with fortitude. “It is true that there are some girls who are not ready in their minds even though their bodies say otherwise,” Fali said. “I was such a one myself. I did not take a mate for one full year after my moon blood had begun to flow. But I would not have thought that of you, Nel. I have always thought you were old for your years.”

Nel shrugged and began to sort through her basket of herbs to escape Fali’s scrutiny. “Nevertheless, I was not ready to take a mate at Spring Fires,” she said.

“And at Winter Fires?” Fali asked. Her voice was just faintly sharper than it had been.

“I will be ready by Winter Fires,” Nel said. She looked up. “Will I be able to choose the man?”

“Of course you can choose the man,” Fali said. The sharpness had disappeared from her voice. “There is not a man in the tribe who does not dream of lying with you, Nel.”

Nel bent lower over the basket, to hide the resentment she feared must show on her face. Of course she would be able to choose the man if she were the one making the Sacred Marriage, she thought. It was infamous of Fali to be keeping that from her.

“You flatter me,” was all she answered.

“Na, I do not flatter you. Unlike Morna, you have no understanding of the power of your own beauty.”

At that Nel’s head jerked up. “Your fondness blinds you, my Mother. I am not beautiful like Morna.”

“That is so,” Fali agreed. “You are not beautiful like Morna. You are beautiful like Nel.”

Nel smiled and nodded and rose to her feet. “I will brew us some tea,” she said, and escaped into the hut.

The Old Woman went to bed early, for which Nel was profoundly grateful. The evening had been difficult. She was very fond of Fali and had always been intensely grateful to the Old Woman for removing her from the custody of her father’s shrewish wife. That gratitude was tempered now by the realization that Fali had had an ulterior motive. Nel reminded herself of that motive all evening, hugging her resentment to herself in an effort to blunt the guilt she was feeling at deserting Fali in her extreme old age.

When Fali had been safely asleep for some time, Nel quietly packed up her sleeping skins and other belongings. Moving on silent feet, she crept to the door of the hut and slipped out. Nothing stirred. Cautiously, Nel moved away from the hut. No dogs barked. Like a shadow in the moonlight, scarcely daring even to breathe, Nel slipped through the sleeping camp.

Ronan was waiting for her in their appointed place, standing on the stony beach and gazing out over the moon-silvered water. He had not yet seen her, and Nel stopped for a moment to feast her eyes on him. Then Nigak was loping toward her, his ears pricked forward, and Ronan turned and said her name. Nel walked forward to meet him.

Chapter Fifteen

Ronan and Nel traveled in the moonlight, following the Greatfish River south almost to the point where it branched off east and fed into the Narrow River. It was an hour before dawn when Ronan called a halt. “Let’s stop and rest until midday,” he said, “and then continue on until supper time.”

Nel nodded wearily. She had scarcely slept the previous night she had been so excited about Ronan’s return, and she was so tired she could scarcely speak. She let her backpack slide to the ground and collapsed beside it.

“Do you want something to eat?” Ronan asked softly.

“Na,” she said. She was resting her forehead on her up-drawn knees. “I just want to sleep, Ronan. I am so weary.”

“Then sleep.” He picked up her pack and began to unroll her sleeping skins. She watched as he spread them out for her. He turned. “A drink?” he asked.

She licked her dry lips. “Sa,” She took the deer bladder he offered and drank the lukewarm water. Ronan had chosen a place on the edge of the forest; the trees were behind them, the river before. In the moonlight Nel could see a small herd of antelope drinking daintily from the river. The whoop of a hyena came from the forest. Crickets chirped, frogs croaked, and somewhere a wolf howled.

“Crawl in, minnow,” Ronan said, and she did. Within minutes she was deeply asleep.

* * * *

Fali knew what had happened the moment she awoke and saw that Nel’s sleeping skins were gone.

“He has come back,” she said out loud. She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again. Nel’s place was still empty. “Goddess,” the Old Woman said plaintively, “what are we to do now?”

Slowly, creakingly, Fali got to her feet. Her joints were always so stiff in the morning. “I feared this,” she said to the empty air. “I never thought that Arika would be rid of him so easily. Now he has taken our Chosen One.” She passed her trembling hand in front of her face. “He always did remind me of Mar.”

She would have to tell Arika. They must get Nel back.

Arika will send to the men at summer camp, Fali thought. She will send to Neihle. Neihle will go after her and bring her back.

Fali went to the door of her hut and lifted the skins. Seated outside, and obviously waiting for her to awaken, was Tyr. He stood up when he saw her. “My Mother,” he said respectfully. His blue eyes were grave. “I must speak with you.”

Fali gestured for him to come in.

“Let me make up your fire,” Tyr said as he ducked into the dark hut, which was redolent with the scent of the herbs drying on a rack in the corner. “You have not yet had your tea.”

“That would be kind of you, Tyr,” Fali said. It was true she had not yet had her tea. Nel had always brewed her morning tea for her. A pang went through Fali as she thought of how she would miss Nel. Slowly she sat down in her accustomed place and watched Tyr as he started the fire with the live coal she kept stored in the hearthplace stones.

“I saw Ronan yesterday,” he said, when the fire had caught and the tea was heating.

“I knew it was so,” Fali replied. “When I awoke this morning and saw that Nel’s sleeping skins were gone, I thought immediately of Ronan.”

“You did?” Tyr glanced at her admiringly.

“I have long known Nel’s feelings,” Fali said. “And I have long suspected that Ronan was not finished with the Tribe of the Red Deer.”

“If you think he took her for revenge, my Mother, you are wrong,” Tyr said.

Fali handed Tyr two cups made from deer frontal bones, and Tyr dipped them in the tea and filled them. Fali said, “I do not know what to think, Tyr. What did Ronan say to you yesterday?”

Tyr told her about the Horsemasters.

Fali heard him out without interrupting. “If Ronan wishes to try to tame horses, let him do so by himself,” she said tartly. “He does not need Nel. You must go after them, Tyr, and persuade her to return.”

“She will not return without Ronan,” Tyr said.

“She knows nothing of our plans for her,” Fali said. “When she learns that she is to be our Mistress…”

Tyr shook his head. “She knows,” he said. “I told her.”

Fali drew her aging, fragile bones into an erect posture. “It was not your place to tell her such a thing, Tyr.”

“Perhaps not.” Tyr stared down into the clear pale liquid that was his sage tea. “But she was leaving us, my Mother, and I thought to hold her with such a word.”

“What did she say?” Fali asked after a moment.

“She does not want it.” Tyr drained his cup. “She would not leave Ronan.”

Fali muttered something under her breath. Then she said more clearly, “And what did Ronan have to say?”

“He said we should send to him when the time for the choosing of a new Mistress came, and they would decide then what they would do.”

“They?” Fali said.

“That was his word.”

“I know what is in his mind. He thinks to marry her,” Fali said angrily. “He thinks to marry her and rule through her.”

Tyr pulled at his braid. “Sa,” he said, “I am thinking that is what he will do.”

Silence fell within. From outside the hut they could hear the sound of children shouting with excitement as they played a chasing game.

“So,” Fali said with great bitterness, “it has come.”

Slowly, carefully, Tyr spoke the words he had been formulating in his mind all during the night. “That is the way the tribes of the plain do it, my Mother. The husband of the Mistress is the chief.” He picked up his cup and turned it around and around with his fingers, looking at it to keep from having to look at Fali. “After all, it is none so different from our way. The man who plays the god at the Fires is our chief. What is the difference?”

Silence. When Fali spoke her voice was heavy with irony. “There is a great difference, Tyr, between a hunting chief who changes with the seasons and a tribal chief who is permanent.”

This time Tyr was silent.

Fali leaned forward. “There is great earth magic in Nel,” she said. “She is close to all things beloved by the Mother. I have long felt she was the one Chosen to lead the tribe.” Fali’s gnarled, almost skeletal hand shook as she set down her cup. “Arika knows this also, but Arika will never allow Nel to succeed her if Nel is married to Ronan.”

“I still do not understand why such a marriage is so impossible,” Tyr said stubbornly. “Other tribes with a male chief follow the Way of the Mother. The woman is still Mistress of the Mother. No man would be fool enough to think he could intrude on such a sacred thing as that. The chief is not the son of a son, as it is with those who follow Sky God. The chief is the man who marries the Daughter.”

“Ronan is too dominant,” Fali said.

“I will tell you this, my Mother, and I speak as one who knows him well,” Tyr said. “In all his life there has been but one person to whom Ronan would listen, and that person is Nel.”

Fali looked skeptical.

“It is true. And if it was true when she was but a child, how much more will it be true now, when she has become such a beautiful young woman?” Tyr nodded. “You underestimate her, my Mother.”

Suddenly Fali looked very weary. “I do not know,” she said. “I cannot judge. I am old, Tyr. I am old and full of sorrow for the loss of my daughter.”

“She told me to ask for your forgiveness,” Tyr said. “She hoped you would understand.”

“I understand all too well. She has chosen Ronan. Over the tribe, over me, she has chosen Ronan,” Tyr stared at his moccasins and did not reply.

“I must tell Arika.” Fali began to rise and Tyr hurried to help her. “Arika will know what to do. Arika will know how to get her hack.”

Tyr stood watching in silence as the Old Woman walked slowly out of the hut.

* * * *

Arika did not want Nel back. “I will not send after her,” the Mistress said after Fali had finished her story. “Above all else, the Mistress must be willing, and today Nel has shown us that she is not.”

“It is not that!” Fali said. “It is that her attachment to Ronan is so strong…” Her voice trailed off at the look on Arika’s face, and Fali bowed her aged head.

“I cannot get free of him,” Arika said dully. She was holding a scraper in her hand and now she banged it on the ground in rhythm with her words. “No matter what I do, I cannot get free of him.”

“You have always thought of him as an enemy,” Fali said. “And I confess that I too have seen in Ronan a resemblance to a man I once knew, a man who once brought much trouble to the Tribe of the Red Deer. But I am thinking now that perhaps we were wrong, Arika. Perhaps Ronan is loved by the Mother. Perhaps that is why he has survived.”

“I do not think so,” Arika said. Deep lines were carved on either side of her mouth.

Silence fell in the Mistress’s hut. Fali was falling into a light doze when Arika finally spoke again. “It is fortunate that I have never formally put aside Morna.”

“You are not thinking to have Morna follow you?” Fali asked sharply.

“What choice have I got?” Arika replied.

“Only two children have you borne in your lifetime, Mistress,” Fali said bluntly, “and of the two, I prefer your son.”

Anger flared in Arika’s red-brown eyes. “I will never give him the chance to get his hands upon this tribe! Never while I live will that happen, Old Woman.”

“I hear you, Mistress,” Fali said heavily. Then, almost as an afterthought, she asked, “What of these Horsemasters?”

“Let my resourceful son deal with them,” Arika snapped.

“Sa,” said Fali, “sa.” She rose slowly and creakingly from her deerskin rug and passed out of the Mistress’s hut.

* * * *

Arika went to Morna’s hut to tell her daughter that Nel was gone.

“Good riddance,” Morna said. “The Old Woman has made so much of her of late that she has been acting as if she were a shaman.”

“Fali is very fond of Nel,” Arika said temperately.

“Where has she gone to?” Morna asked next. She tossed her red-gold head. “Run away with some man, I suppose.”

“Sa,” said Arika. “She has.”

Despite her words, Morna was surprised. “Who?” she demanded. “Not a man of the Red Deer?”

“Not a man of the Red Deer.”

“Then who, Mother?” Morna asked impatiently.

“Ronan.”

“Ronan!”

“Sa. Ronan.”

A shifting current of emotions eddied across Morna’s face. Finally she said scornfully, “I suppose he has no women in that valley of his, and Ronan is not a man to lie alone. Nel always followed after him like a fawn after its mother. I suppose he thought lying with her would be better than nothing.”

Arika turned toward the door. Morna had been jealous of Nel ever since Nel’s growing beauty first became apparent. Arika had never suffered from jealousy herself, and she hated to see it in her daughter. “I do not know his reasons,” Arika said, “but Nel has gone with him. I thought you should know.” She pushed aside the skins and left.

Left alone, Morna frowned and darted restless glances around her hut. At Arika’s request she had not gone to summer camp this year, and she was hating the summer, stuck at home with only the old men, the boys, and besotted husbands like Tyr.

The thought of Nel and Ronan together was eating into her. “I’m glad she’s gone!” Morna said out loud. And it was true. She was glad. She was not glad, however, that Nel had gone with Ronan.

Morna went to the door of her hut, pushed aside the skins, and looked out at the peaceful camp. The only people visible were women and children. Morna was sick to death of women and children.