The Horsemasters (41 page)

Chapter Twenty-eight

One week after Ronan’s meeting with Morna, she gave birth to her son, Ronan had said nothing to Nel about his conversation with his sister. He had been sickened and appalled by it, but for the first time in his life, he was afraid that Nel would not see things the same way he did. Morna had found a weapon that would strike at the very heart of his life, his relationship with Nel, and he did not know what he was going to do.

All during that week of waiting, Ronan told himself that Morna had been wrong. All women so near to giving birth feared they would die, he thought. He was a fool to so upset himself over the words of a sick, malevolent woman. There was certainly enough for him to worry about without borrowing trouble from Morna!

There had been a baby horn shortly after the tribes had gathered at the Great Cave, and Morna’s was the second. The women took her out to the moon hut for privacy, and after a full night and day of hard labor, it was clear that this childbirth was not going as smoothly as it should.

Arika stayed with her daughter, saying prayers to the Mother and making all the ceremonials that were supposed to ease the baby’s way out of its mother’s body and into the world. But hour after hour went by, and still the baby would not come.

Morna was suffering terribly. Her screams did not reach very far beyond the moon hut, but there was a pall over the whole encampment as they waited for news. Everyone knew it was going on too long.

As the day dragged by, Ronan’s heart grew heavier and heavier. Morna had foreseen the truth, he thought bleakly. She would die and leave behind a child for him to rear.

Won’t you like that, Ronan? Seeing my son at your hearthfire every night? Watching your beloved Nel holding him close to her heart?

It was very late in the afternoon when at last Berta came out to the men’s encampment to tell him the news: Morna was dead and had left her son to the care of Nel and Ronan.

* * * *

Every atom of Nel’s being yearned toward that baby. When Arika had placed Morna’s child in her arms, joy had leaped like wildfire in Nel’s heart. She had been ashamed of that joy, but she could not contain it. Her arms had curled around the tiny, warm bundle, and she had looked down into the small, perfect face of Morna’s son.

“One of the women of the Red Deer has nursed him already,” Arika said. “You will have to find one of the women of your tribe to nurse him as you obviously cannot do it yourself.”

Nel looked into Arika’s ravaged face, and pity nudged at the joy in her heart. She said, “Will you sit and have some tea, Mistress? You look exhausted.”

Arika let out a long shuddering sigh. “Sa,” she said. “I will have some tea with you, Nel.”

Beki said softly to Nel, “Let me take the babe for you, Nel, while you speak to the Mistress. I will put him to sleep beside Eken’s little one.”

Nel did not want to part with the baby, but she looked at Arika’s face, then turned to transfer carefully the precious bundle into Beki’s arms. The rest of the women melted away, leaving the two alone by the fire. “She knew she was going to die,” Arika said. “She told me when the pains were first beginning that she would not live to see her son.” Arika bowed her head. She looked beaten. She looked old. “It is the only time I have ever seen the Goddess in Morna, when she told me she was going to die.”

Nel’s sensitive mouth curved downward with reflected pain.

Arika lifted her head. “She told me she was going to die and that she wanted you to have her child.”

Nel nodded gravely. “I am the only woman left of her Mother’s Line, and Ronan is her only brother. Of course she would name us to take her child.”

Arika looked steadily into Nel’s eyes. “That may be true, but that is not why Morna named you. Don’t you understand, Nel?” There was a pause as Arika’s eyes bored into Nel’s. “She did it to punish Ronan,” Arika said.

Now the pain in Nel’s heart was not a mere reflection of Arika’s. “Ah…,” Nel’s hand went to her throat, “I had not thought…”

In truth, all she had been thinking, all she had been feeling, was the baby.

“I brought the child to you because I promised Morna I would do so,” Arika said. “But it is up to you and Ronan, whether or not you will keep him.”

“Ronan will not mind,” Nel managed to stammer.

“On the contrary”—Arika’s voice was harsh—”I am thinking that he will mind very much.”

Nel bent her head.

“I can find someone else in the tribe who will take him,” Arika said. “I will not expose him, Nel. You need have no fear of that.”

Nel shuddered.

When Arika next spoke her tone was more gentle. “You have never conceived?”

Nel shook her head. With downcast eyes, she told Arika of her own belief that she had offended the Mother. Then she repeated what Ronan had told her.

“Ronan said that?” Arika asked in a strange voice.

“Sa,” Nel said.

“He surprises me,” his mother said. “He continually surprises me.” She looked at Nel’s half-hidden face. “Perhaps he will surprise me again and say that you may keep the child.”

At that, Nel threw up her head. “It is not enough that he says the child may stay for my sake. He must accept it also.” Nel’s eyes glittered. “Both Ronan and I know what it is to grow up in a place where you are not wanted, and it is no good. I would never do that to a child. Never!”

Arika was very pale. She put down her half-drunk tea. “You must discuss it with him, then, and let me know.”

Moving slowly, like an old woman, she lumbered to her feet. “I must go now and see about burying my daughter,” she said, turned, and walked wearily away.

* * * *

Ronan sent his men to their supper, but he himself did not remain in camp to eat. He felt the men watching him as he walked out of the valley, Nigak at his heels. Berta’s news had reached every ear by now, and he knew the men were wondering what he was going to do about Morna’s child.

He had taken the track that led to the Great Cave, but once he was out of view of the valley he veered off of it and cut south toward the cliffs. He was not yet ready to face Nel.

What am I going to do?

Berta had told him that Nel had taken the baby. Well, that was no surprise. He had known all along that Nel would take the baby. She had tried valiantly to hide from him her disappointment when her moon blood had begun to flow a few days after they had been together in the sacred cave, but he had seen the pain in her eyes.

If he told her that he could never accept Morna’s child into his heart, she would understand. She would give the baby up. More than anyone, Nel understood how wrong it would be to leave a child where it was not wanted.

But he had seen the pain in her eyes.

What am I going to do?

He checked at the sight of a solitary feminine figure walking toward him along the base of the cliff. For a moment, sheer panic held him frozen. Nigak whined. Then Ronan saw that the girl’s hair was silver-blond, not red-gold, and his heart began to slow to its normal beat.

It was Fenris’s daughter. Siguna. He frowned. She should not be out here alone. He strode forward, Nigak pacing watchfully at his heels.

* * * *

Siguna saw Ronan at almost the exact moment he saw her, and she halted against the cliff, her wary eyes on Nigak. She had learned to be fairly comfortable with Nel’s dogs, but the wolf still frightened her.

“What are you doing out here alone?” Ronan said.

To Siguna’s relief, Nigak went right by her and began to sniff along the bottom of the cliff. “Where are Thorn and Mait?” Ronan demanded next, and she raised her eyes to see him scowling at her.

“Back at the Great Cave,” Siguna said. “I wanted to be alone.”

His frown deepened. “You have too much of a liking for being alone.”

Siguna drew a deep slow breath and steadied herself. She didn’t know why, but there was something about Ronan that always seemed to unnerve her. She answered him in an even tone. “These last days have not been very easy for me, and Thorn and Mait were kind enough to understand.”

She could see him remember why she might not have found the general rejoicing in camp very enjoyable. He passed a hand across his brow as if to rub away the scowl and said in a milder voice, “I am sorry, Siguna.” He dropped his hand. “But there are dangerous animals about; it is not safe for you to wander so far from camp.”

She thought that he looked weary. It came to her then that neither was Ronan in his usual place. Had he too been in search of solitude?

She asked tentatively, “Is something wrong?”

A raven swooped by overhead, its wingbeats making a hissing skhou, skhou in the heavy stillness. A picture of what the ravens had been doing last week flitted through Siguna’s mind, and she shuddered. As if from a distance, she heard Ronan’s voice saying, “Is it possible that you have not heard?”

She shook her head, forcing herself to concentrate on his words. “I have heard nothing.”

“I thought everyone must have heard.” He too was watching the raven, his dark eyes narrowed against the sun, bitterness in the hard lines of his mouth. “It is Morna,” he said. “She died in childbirth and left her son to my care and Nel’s.”

Siguna’s breath hissed in her throat.

The bitterness edging Ronan’s mouth deepened, “Sa. It is hard to believe, is it not?”

Slowly, Siguna seated herself upon a large rock that was jutting out from the cliffside. She knew what lay between Ronan and his sister; she had not been two weeks with the Tribe of the Wolf before she had heard that tale. She was also well aware of Nel’s barrenness and the sorrow it had caused her. She said now, looking up into Ronan’s wintry face, “I did not know.”

He grunted. “Well, now you understand why I too have been avoiding going home.”

She was deeply surprised that he was speaking to her in such wise. Slowly it came to her that this confidence sharing was his way of apologizing for having forgotten her own sorrow.

“Will Nel take the child?” she asked softly, ready to drop the subject instantly if that was what he wished.

He braced his right hand against the wall of the cliff and bent his head to look at her. “What do you think?”

Siguna replied honestly, “I do not think it will matter to her whose babe this may be—she will love it anyway.”

His face was utterly bleak. “That is what I think too.”

Siguna averted her eyes from that unguarded face, resting them instead on the hand he had braced against the cliff wall. It was a thinner hand than her father’s, but the forearm that was exposed by Ronan’s rolled-up sleeve was hard-muscled and deeply tanned.

Ronan said, “She wants a child, and when a woman has a longing like that in her heart, there is nothing a man can say or do that will change it.”

Siguna tore her eyes away from that strangely exciting hand. She said something about how hard it was for a man to accept another man’s child.

He shook his head, signifying that was not it. “I am his mother’s brother,” he said. “In the Tribe of the Red Deer, it is the mother’s brother who is a child’s closest male relative. I have obligations to this child. I know that. But…” Here his voice broke off. His face was even bleaker than it had been.

He was looking for help, Siguna thought suddenly. That was why he was discussing this with her. He was seeking for a way to make this child acceptable to him.

Suddenly, fiercely, desperately, Siguna wanted to help him. She made herself draw a long, settling breath before she asked, “Then why not take him, Ronan?”

His nostrils flared. “The answer to that should be obvious, I think. This is Morna’s child.” The way he said his sister’s name indicated the depth of his revulsion.

Siguna regarded the dark, arrogant face that was so clearly outlined against the cobalt blue sky. “Is it that you are afraid the child will be like Morna?”

He nodded his raven head.

Two red deer, a buck and a doe, suddenly appeared between the cliffs that guarded the path to the south. As Siguna gazed at them, they noticed Nigak and bounded away, disappearing as suddenly as they had come.

It was a sign, Siguna thought. The deer were a sign from the Mother. Suddenly she was sure that it was the Goddess’s doing that she and Ronan had come together on the cliff path this day.

For the first time in her life, Siguna closed her eyes and prayed: Mother, help me. If you have truly sent this man to me, then give me the right words to say.

Siguna opened her eyes. She looked at Ronan. She said, “We have bred horses in my tribe for many generations, Ronan, and any one of us would tell you that, no matter how wild the stallion or mare, if the foal is gentled young, then he is yours. The color, the speed, the temperament, all these may come from the parents; but the spirit belongs to the one who tames it. I am thinking that this is true for children as well as for foals.”

Ronan was silent for a long time. Finally he said, “I do not know.” He looked suddenly very uncertain and very young. He repeated, “I do not know.”

Siguna’s heart went out to him. Her hands longed to go out to him as well, and, feeling their movement, she clasped them together in her lap. She made her voice very cool in order to mask her emotion. “What would Nigak have been like if he had been left to his own mother to rear?” she asked. “He would have been the same wolf in blood and bone, but his spirit would be utterly different.”

They both turned to look at Nigak as he sniffed his way along the cliff, checking for the scent of another male wolf. Ronan answered slowly, his eyes still on Nigak, “That is so.”

Another silence fell between them. Nigak raised a hind leg and left his own scent on the lower part of the cliff.

Siguna smiled, as if something that had been eluding her had suddenly fallen into place. “You took twins into your tribe, Ronan, when no one else would. Why did you do that?”

His dark eyes were puzzled, as if he did not understand the change of subject. He shrugged and said, “It is simply that I do not believe that babies can be evil.”

He fell silent as he heard his own words.

This time the silence went on for a very long time. High on the cliffs Siguna could see several ibex. A male with sharp horns was reclining on the top of a flat boulder. As she watched, his head sank slowly under the weight of his horns until his nose touched the rock; then it jerked up, only to begin to descend again.