The Horsemasters (55 page)

Arika opened her mouth to suggest Siguna and then closed it again. In the mood they were in, the worst thing she could do was to suggest the name of an outsider. “There are many girls of the Red Deer who could take my place,” she said instead.

“There are none like Nel,” said Neihle.

Of course, it was not Nel she was objecting to. They all knew that.

There were geese swimming on the river. Arika watched them, small black dots on the golden water, identifiable to her only by the honking sounds they made. Her eyes were not what once they had been, she thought. It was true. She was growing old.

Ronan had won. The men were trying to distract her with talk of Nel, but Arika knew what would happen. Ronan would take over the tribe, and Nel would let him do it.

“When did you discuss this with Ronan?” she asked bitterly. Implied, even if not said, was the added thought: Behind my back.

Tyr did not look at all ashamed. “We haven’t.”

It was a moment before Arika understood. “You haven’t discussed this with him?”

“We wished to speak with you first, Arika,” Neihle said.

“That is kind of you,” she replied with icy courtesy. Her brother at least had the grace to look ashamed. “When were you planning to speak to Ronan?” she added.

They looked at each other.

“Get him,” she ordered Tyr. Let them do it now, she thought. In my presence. Let it be as difficult for them as it can be.

After a moment’s hesitation, in which he again exchanged glances with the other men, Tyr arose and began to walk in the direction of the main camp.

* * * *

Ronan, too, had been making plans for the future. In fact, he and Unwar were just concluding a discussion when Tyr approached and requested Ronan’s presence.

“Of course,” Ronan agreed courteously if somewhat abstractedly, his mind still on the conversation he had just finished. He nodded to the chief of the Leopard and turned toward Tyr.

“We will need Nel also,” Tyr said.

That caught Ronan’s attention. He looked at Tyr, a line between his slender black brows. “Do you want to tell me what this is about?” he asked pleasantly.

Tyr shook his head. “You will know very shortly.”

“Nel is with the captive women,” Ronan said.

“Wait here,” Tyr said, “and I will get her.”

Ronan folded his arms across his chest, balanced himself on slightly spread feet, and looked at the flock of geese on the river. His mind turned to his conversation with Unwar. It had gone even better than he had hoped. Then he began to think of his plans for the future.

A dog yipped in pain. Ronan turned to see Sintra looking up indignantly at Nel.

“She walked right under my feet!” Tyr was exclaiming. “I didn’t see her.”

Nel gave the dog’s head a brisk pat and continued to walk on. “She’s always trying to get next to me, Tyr, and she’s slowed down because of the puppies she’s carrying. I’m sorry. I should have told you to look out for her.”

“Those fool dogs,” Ronan said as they all came up to him, Sintra pressed close to Nel’s knees. “Nigak has far too much intelligence, not to mention dignity, to get himself stepped on.”

“That is true,” Nel said fairly. Behind Tyr’s back, she gave Ronan a questioning look. He shrugged to indicate his own ignorance, and the two of them obligingly fell into step with Tyr.

Ronan felt a shock of deep surprise when he saw that Arika was with the men. He glanced quickly at Nel and saw that she was frowning.

What’s afoot here?
he thought.

The men of the Red Deer were seated in a circle, and they indicated the place they had made for Ronan and Nel. Mystified as well as faintly uneasy, Ronan sat down and looked at Arika.

But it was Neihle, not Arika, who began to speak. He had to repeat himself twice before Ronan understood.

Dhu, he thought. He stared in stunned amazement at the male faces around him. They were faces he knew well. Faces he had grown up with. His eyes came to Arika and stopped.

She looked back at him, her head held proudly, her eyes glitteringly bright. It was the moment of her defeat, and both of them knew it. She had never looked more like a chief.

The geese were rising from the river now. The whole sky was whirring and wheeling with them, and the sound of their
keeronks
echoed down the valley.

He heard himself asking, “What of my people from the Tribe of the Wolf?”

“I have no doubt that they will be welcomed back into their former tribes,” Neihle said. “After all, it is largely because of the Tribe of the Wolf that these mountains were saved from destruction.”

“Those of your people who worship the Goddess can come to us,” Erek added generously.

Silence fell. The geese were winging their way up the river now, honking and yulking to each other in the way of their kind. Ronan watched them disappear in the direction of the devastated home camps of the tribes of the Fox and the Bear.

“Well?” said Tyr.

Ronan turned to Nel, who was sitting so quietly by his side. What shall I do? he asked her with his eyes. What do you want me to do?

She returned his look gravely, then rested one slender hand upon his knee. He understood from its light pressure that she was leaving the decision up to him.

This was what he had always wanted, to be chief of the Red Deer. Even as a boy, deep in the innermost recesses of his heart, he had wanted it. When he had left home, a pariah, an exile, he had sworn to come back as the chief. It had even been part of the reason he had married Nel, because through her he had hoped to win his heart’s desire.

How ironic that now it was being offered to him, he no longer cared. More—he no longer wanted it. He realized, with a great lift of his heart, that at long last he was free of his mother.

He covered the slim fingers on his knee with his own warm hand. He said, “I have already decided not to take the Tribe of the Wolf back to the valley. There is not room enough there for additional people, and what is left of the tribes of the Fox and the Bear are going to join with us. We will occupy the old homesites of those two tribes. I have made certain that this is acceptable to the Tribe of the Leopard, which will be our nearest neighbor. Unwar has extended his welcome.”

There was absolute silence. Even the noise of the geese had faded. Nel’s fingers turned and laced themselves with his.

“You will not come back to us?” Neihle said at last.

“Na, Uncle. I already have a tribe that depends upon me. I cannot abandon them now.”

Silence fell again. Then Arika said, “I am proud of you, my son.”

Ronan smiled with genuine amusement. “I am certain that you are, Mother,” he said. “I am certain that you are.”

Epilogue
One year later

They stood shoulder to shoulder at the place where the ravine widened to give access to the valley. The scene before them was brilliantly illuminated by the bright afternoon sun: the mirror-calm lake; the thick, lush, snow-fed grass, ablaze with flowers; the enclosing walls, with flowers growing in all the tiny crevices. In the distance beyond the walls loomed the snowy peaks of the Altas, shimmering white bridges between heaven and earth.

Nigak pushed past Ronan and cantered out onto the grass. Then, flattening out and running like the wind, he streaked away down the valley.

Nel laughed softly. “He is home.”

“Mama,” piped a small clear voice from the cradleboard slung upon Ronan’s back. “Igak!”

“He’ll be back, Culen,” Nel said. “Nigak always comes back.”

“The huts don’t look as if they have been touched,” Ronan murmured, and Nel followed his gaze. In unison they started forward, each leading a horse and followed by Sintra and Leir.

White Foot whinnied excitedly as he recognized where he was. The horse-herd was halfway down the valley, but Nel could see how Impero’s head lifted at the sound of that whinny.

“I had almost forgotten how beautiful it is,” she murmured.

“The most beautiful place in the world,” he said.

Nel sighed.

* * * *

They went to their old hut, and Nel unwrapped Culen from his cradleboard and set him on his feet. A group of the men of the Wolf had come to the valley last autumn to collect some of the belongings that the tribe had left behind, but neither Ronan nor Nel had been back since they had left to go and fight the Horsemasters over one year before.

Culen toddled around the hut. He had already been walking for two moons and was quite steady on his feet. Sintra and Leir followed him, sniffing nostalgically at remembered smells.

Ronan collected the old water pot that was still in the hut and went to get water from the lake.

Nel untied the sleeping skins that had been fastened to the horses’ backs and spread them on the hut floor, first removing the cooking utensils that were wrapped inside them. As soon as Culen saw the cookpot, he came running. “Hungy. Hungy.”

“I know, love. I know. Mama will cook soon.”

Outside, they could hear Ronan giving water to the horses.

“Tirsty,” Culen said, and went determinedly to the door. He called, “Dada, I tirsty.”

“Come down to the lake with me, then, and we’ll get you a drink,” Ronan answered. Culen rushed off.

Left alone, Nel regarded the remaining fruits and grains she had stored in the cookpot. Ronan was going to have to get them something to eat, she thought. Perhaps a fish from the lake. Fish was easy for Culen to chew.

Most Kindred children had nothing but mother’s milk until they were almost three years of age, but Nel had begun to feed Culen real food as soon as he had a few teeth. She had found that, if she mashed his fruits and chewed his meats for him, he could eat just fine. In fact, she thought it was good for him. He was larger than most children his age and had begun to walk and talk at an early age.

She went to the door of the hut and looked out. Ronan had lifted Culen to his shoulders, and the little boy was riding proudly, surveying the scene before him like a chief. Nel smiled mistily to see them so.

I am glad that we decided to do this, she thought. It is good to be by ourselves for a little. When we are at home, it is so hard just to be by ourselves.

She repeated her thought to Ronan later that evening, after Culen had been put to sleep and the two of them had gone outside so Ronan could build a watch fire.

“I know,” he answered. He left the blazing fire and came over to where she was standing near the hut. As they stood together watching the fire, he said, “The bigger the tribe gets, the more of our time it seems to take up.”

“I miss the days in the valley,” she said softly. She laughed. “Remember the fuss over the horse-calling ceremony?”

“Mmmm.” He sounded amused.

“Life was simpler then,” she said.

“We could never have kept the number of horses we have now if we had stayed in the valley,” he pointed out. “You know that. You were the one who was always complaining about the difficulty of keeping stallions.”

“I know. Horsekeeping is certainly much easier now that we have the Horsemasters’ mares with just Cloud to lead them. Nor does Cloud seem to mind White Foot and Frost, the way Impero would.”

“He would mind them if we set them loose to join the herd, but as long as we keep them separate in their own corral, they are safe.”

“The other tribes appear to be faring well with the horses we gave to them.”

“They are learning,” Ronan said.

Nel rested her cheek against his shoulder. “The valley brings back so many memories of Thorn,” she said.

She felt him stiffen. She knew he felt responsible for Thorn’s death. This last year she had tried and tried to tell him he was foolish to blame himself, but he would not listen. Finally, she had come to understand that it was precisely this very ruthlessness in holding himself accountable that made Ronan such a fine chief.

“He has left a gap in the tribe,” Ronan said. “It is still there.”

“Sa.”

Despite the fire, the night air was cool, and she pressed closer to his warmth.

“Come inside, Nel,” he said in a low voice.

Inside, the light from the single stone lamp showed them Culen sleeping peacefully, nestled between Sintra and Leir.

Ronan smiled. “I sometimes fear that Culen will grow up thinking he is a dog himself.”

Nel chuckled.

It was warmer within the hut, and the air smelled faintly of the fish that Nel had grilled earlier. She sat down on her sleeping skins and began to undo the braid in her hair. Ronan went to the water pot and ladled himself a drink. She watched as he tipped his head back, watched the working of the muscles in his strong brown throat as he swallowed. He finished his drink, stripped his buckskin shirt over his head, and went to hang it on the wall.

For all of her earlier complaints, Nel thought, it had been a happy year for them both. The wound of rejection Ronan had carried in his heart ever since his expulsion from the Tribe of the Red Deer had finally healed. He could meet his mother now with no more emotion than he showed to Haras or any of the other chiefs. He had done so, in fact, at the last Spring Gathering.

And for her, the wound of childlessness had healed also. She had Culen now. Ironically, Morna’s hate-filled legacy had proved a means of strengthening Ronan’s marriage instead of destroying it. Every time Nel saw her husband pluck Culen from amongst the dogs and lift the shrieking and delighted baby to his shoulders, joy and gratitude surged through her heart.

Ronan had finished undressing and was coming toward her now on bare and silent feet, Nel shook out her hair and untied the thongs at the neck of her shirt.

“You are slow tonight, minnow,” he said, and kneeling in front of her, he finished the job of undressing her himself.

They stretched out together on the sleeping skins, and as he kissed her, his fingers gently caressed her breasts. The familiar ache of passion began to build, and when his tongue slipped in between her lips she opened her mouth against his, sinking under his touch, yielding her body utterly to his caresses.

“Nel.” His voice sounded like a growl. His mouth was all over her now, and she was quivering and quivering, reaching for him, seeking him, needing him.