The Horsemasters (40 page)

“I am not. Look at me, Nel, I mean it. I do not care if we never have children.”

Slowly, reluctantly, she turned around. She looked up into his face, and he gazed steadily back. Tears began to well in her eyes when she saw that he was telling her the truth.

“Don’t cry, minnow,” he said softly. “Please don’t cry. You know I can’t bear to see you cry.” And he held out his arms.

She seemed so small and light-boned as she pressed against him. He smelled the herbs with which she washed her hair. No one else’s hair smelled like Nel’s. For no one else had he ever felt the gut-wrenching tenderness that he always felt for her. Perhaps he should not have spoken, but he could not bear to see her wearing herself out with longing.

“If you want, I will go to the sacred cave with you,” he said. “We will make the sacred marriage in the Mother’s own place. But I do not want you to be disappointed if you do not have a child, Nel.”

He felt her shudder and try to get herself under control. She slid her arms around his waist and held him tightly. His heart was breaking for her, but he knew that he had spoken the truth. Ronan had long understood that the Goddess gave nothing without exacting some payment in return.

What he had kept hidden from Nel was the fact that, deep down, he was glad she had borne no children. He would keep that secret, he decided, lest she suspect that perhaps his gladness was the very cause of the Mother’s anger.

The women of his blood had ever had ill luck with childbearing. Nel’s own mother had died, Arika had almost died with Morna and had been able to bear no more. Morna herself was not looking well. Ronan would be very happy to keep Nel safe.

And he was happy, also, to keep her his. He had heard too much of men’s grumbling about their enforced continence during the moons of childbearing and early nursing. If he had to do it, he would, but to himself he acknowledged the truth. He liked having his wife to himself. He had the tribe to guide and to rule; he did not need children also.

He touched his mouth to her hair. “You are enough for me, minnow.” He added, a little plaintively, “Aren’t I enough for you?”

At that, she loosened her grip on him, sniffled twice, and tipped back her head. Her face in the moonlight was silvered all over with tears. “Sa,” she said in a husky voice. “You have always been enough for me.”

They gazed into each other’s eyes, Ronan said, “Do you still want to go to the sacred cave?”

“Sa.” The huskiness of Nel’s voice was subtly different.

Ronan’s face was intent. “I’ll tell Bror, so that no one gets nervous and starts to look for us.”

Nel nodded.

He lifted a finger and lightly touched her mouth. “I won’t be long,” he promised and ran back toward the firelight on feet as fleet as wings.

* * * *

As soon as the men returned to the Great Cave, Siguna sought out Thorn. She wanted to go to the gorge to search for her father. “I cannot leave him there,” she insisted. “If he is dead, I must bury him.”

“I did not see him fall, Siguna,” Thorn kept repeating patiently. “Nor did Mait see him among the dead. Mait was one of those sent to retrieve our weapons, and he did not see the kain. I asked him specifically because I knew you would want to know.”

“I must be certain,” Siguna said. “He is my father.”

She was neither wild nor hysterical. She was perfectly calm and perfectly determined. Thorn, who was equally determined that she not go, did not know what to do with her.

“The scavengers will have been at the corpses for a day and a night,” he finally said bluntly, “You do not want to see what is in that gorge, Siguna.”

No trace of horror crossed her beautiful face. “It does not matter,” she replied. “All that matters is that I assure myself that my father is not there.”

Thorn gritted his teeth against his own horror. “Then I will go for you,” he said. “I know what the kain looks like. If he is there, and if he is still recognizable, I promise you I will bring him out so you can bury him.”

Siguna did not flinch. “You do not understand. I must go myself, Thorn.” She repeated, “He is my father.”

Thorn glared. “I know he is your father!” They eyed each other. “You are right,” Thorn said. “I do not understand. Do you not trust me?”

Siguna made an impatient gesture. “Let us go to see the Mistress,” she said.

At those words, Thorn became wary. He had not been overly pleased by the amount of time that his charge was spending in Arika’s company of late. Siguna was different after she had been talking to Arika. Thorn had noticed it, and he did not like it. In truth, Thorn was somewhat jealous of the bond that appeared to be forming between Siguna and the Mistress of the Red Deer.

“Why?” he asked now. “What can Arika have to say about this?”

“She will understand why I must go.”

“Siguna.” Thorn was beginning to get really angry. “Will you please be sensible? There is no reason for you to go to that gorge!”

“No reason that you understand, Thorn,” she replied calmly. “I am going to see the Mistress.”

“Very well,” he snapped. “I will come with you.” And the two young people moved off together toward the Red Deer section of the cave.

Arika was giving a voice blessing to one of the tribe’s babes, but when she had finished her chant she listened to Siguna’s request with no sign of horror or disgust.

“This will be an ugly sight for you” was all she said when Siguna had finished.

“I know that,” Siguna replied. Her face was pale and set, her gray eyes wide and dark and dedicated. “But I must see for myself that my father is not lying there, food for the ravens and scavengers of the earth.” She lifted her head. “To you he is simply the enemy, but to me he is my father.”

Thorn had been silent thus far, but now he said, “Mistress, I have said that I will go to the gorge and search for the kain. It is not necessary for Siguna to undertake this terrible task.”

Arika’s eyes went back to Siguna. “Do your gods demand this of you?” she asked.

“I do not know overmuch of the gods,” Siguna replied honestly. “The women of my tribe do not have a sacred world of their own as do the women of the Red Deer. This is a duty that I have laid upon myself.”

“You love your father?”

“I love my father,” Siguna said. “But that is not the point.”

“You are right,” Arika replied. The Mistress’s face was very grave. “It is not the point at all.” She said to Thorn, “The girl must be allowed to search for her father.”

Thorn bit back the rash words that were on his tongue.

Siguna bowed her silvery head. “I thank you, Mistress, for understanding and for granting me this wish.”

There was nothing Thorn could do. Arika’s word in this matter would not be gainsaid, not even by Ronan. Trying to make the best of it, Thorn said, “She cannot go alone.”

The Mistress surveyed him from his head to his toes. Thorn set his teeth and refused to be intimidated. Arika finally said, “Then you may accompany her.”

“But I must look myself!” Siguna said sharply. “I cannot give this task to any eyes but my own.”

“You shall be the one to look,” Arika promised. “Go now, my daughter. There is no more time for you to waste.”

After the two young people had disappeared around the curve in the tunnel, Arika turned to one of the matriarchs who had heard the exchange. “There is a girl who understands the sacredness of duty,” the Mistress said thoughtfully.

“So I was thinking,” the matriarch replied.

“Such a girl will find no room to breathe in the tribes that follow Sky God.”

“The boy seems very interested,” the matriarch commented. “If he seeks to marry her, she will have to go to his tribe.”

“He is more interested in her than she is in him,” Arika responded dismissively.

The matriarch sighed. “It is unfortunate that the same could not have been said about Nel and Ronan.”

Arika’s face closed. “Come,” she said sharply. “It is time to check the wounded.”

* * * *

Cloud picked his own surefooted way down the rocky path between the hills while the man on his back reviewed in his mind the sequence of his action against the Horsemasters.

I need to determine what was successful for us and how I can use that success for the next time, Ronan thought.

He recognized with regret that surprise would never again be the same devastating factor it had been in the gorge. The chief of the Horsemasters would never let them be caught in a trap like that again.

He was clever, this Fenris. He had almost succeeded in luring Ronan’s men into breaking ranks. If he had done that… Ronan’s mouth set grimly as he thought about what might have happened if his men had left their nearly invincible formation and begun to pour down into the gorge.

The marksmen on the cliffs would have been immobilized. The enemy horsemen would have had a good chance of breaking through the strung-out defenders and gaining the pass. If Ronan had not kept his men out of that gorge, the ravens would be feasting on more than the Horsemasters this day.

Fenris had understood all of this. Ronan had seen the expression of bitter disappointment on the kain’s face when he had realized that the spearmen were going to hold. It had been the strangest feeling, but for the briefest of moments, Ronan had felt an affinity with the chief of the enemy forces. He had known exactly what Fenris was feeling.

Cloud had reached the bottom of the mountain path, and Ronan turned him in the direction of the men’s camp. It was very quiet in the hills today, he thought, glancing around. All of the scavengers were occupied elsewhere.

That shoulder-to-shoulder, spear-forward formation had worked extremely well, Ronan decided, shifting his own spear from his right hand to his left. It had turned back the horses. What he had to do now was figure out how he could continue to make such a formation work when he did not have the narrow chasm of a gorge to contain the enemy.

Cloud suddenly snorted and threw up his head, Ronan roused himself from his preoccupation, looked ahead, and saw the solitary woman waiting for him on the edge of the track. Instinctively, he braced his back, and Cloud’s stride checked. It was Morna.

The two of them had dwelled within sight of each other for over a moon now, but never had they been in the same company. Ronan had yet to speak one word to his sister, nor had she spoken to him. They had both comported themselves as if the other were invisible, a tactic that had been aided and abetted by the rest of the men and women of their tribes. All knew what a weight of accusation and bitterness lay between Morna and Ronan, and all preferred to pretend that they did not.

For one brief and terrible moment, it seemed to Ronan as if time had rolled back. He was a young boy again, and Morna had come to lure him into an unspeakable sin. Cloud, reacting to the sudden rigidity of his rider, pawed the ground and began to sidle.

Then time rolled forward once more, and Ronan saw the swollen, child-heavy body of his sister. He touched Cloud with his heels and went forward to meet her.

“You,” he said, in unconscious echo of his words five years before. “What are you doing here?”

She smiled at him mockingly. “I have not come for what you may think, Ronan.” She placed a thin, white hand upon her great belly, “This is somewhat in my way these days.”

He kept his seat on Cloud and watched her warily. “You should not have ventured so far alone. You are too near your time.”

“I know I am near my time,” she said. “I have felt death on the wind these last two days.”

His brows drew together. “The only death on the wind has been the deaths of the Horsemasters. You are weary, Morna. That is all it is.”

“Na.” She shook her head and her loose red-gold hair floated around her shoulders. Even now, with fatigue imprinted in every line of her face, with shadows staining her eyes and thinness hollowing her cheeks, even now, she was beautiful. “I have known I was doomed since first I began to carry this child,” she said. She shrugged. “It is the Mother’s punishment on me. I know that as well.”

She frightened him. She frightened him because he found himself believing her.

“Punishment for what you did to me?” he asked, his voice sounding like a croak.

Her eyes flashed in their old way. “You deserved what I did to you,” she said. “Na, this is for something else.”

He had no intention of asking her what that something else might be.

“I will die,” she continued with eerie matter-of-factness, “but my child will live. It will be a boy and my mother will not want him. So, Ronan, I am going to leave him to you and Nel.”

Ronan went absolutely rigid.

Morna’s face lit with an enchanting smile. “I should not have told you, I know. I should have left it until there was nothing you could do about it. But I so much wanted to see your face.”

Ronan found his voice. “Nel cannot nurse a child,” he said harshly.

“Someone else can nurse him for her. But I will name Nel to be his mother.” She put her hand on her side and leaned a little forward. “Once she takes my child in her arms, you will never get him away from her, Ronan.”

He stared at her and saw Morna recoil from what she read in his eyes. Then she recovered herself, and once again she smiled mockingly. “Won’t you like that, Ronan? Seeing my son at your hearthfire every night? Watching your beloved Nel holding him close to her heart?”

He felt frozen. His limbs wouldn’t move. He did not think he would ever be able to get off of Cloud again. He said stiffly, “The child’s father may have somewhat to say about your plans.”

“Ronan.” Her face brimmed with malicious joy. “Do you think anyone knows who this child’s father is?”

He closed his fist upon Cloud’s mane, to keep from lifting his spear against her.

“You hate me,” Morna said. “Good. Because I hate you.”

“Why?” It was the one thing he had never understood, why she should hate him so. “Why? Morna. Why do you hate me?”

She answered simply, “Because I wanted you and you did not want me.”

There was nothing he could answer. He drew a long, shuddering breath and pressed Cloud forward, past the pollution that was his sister and his sister’s unborn child.