The Horsemasters (7 page)

“I do not understand you,” Cala said in gentle confusion. “Why are you speaking thus of Ronan to Morna? Ronan is her brother.”

“Sa.” Borba tossed back her golden braid. She and Morna looked at each other. “So he is.”

Chapter Five

The salmon began their yearly run up the Greatfish River, and the men of the tribe devoted almost all their waking hours to fishing. In the deeper water, they used boats made from bark and nets they had woven from branches and vines to bring in the salmon. Where the river was shallow, they speared the fish with three-pronged harpoons.

Fishing was not a sport to the Tribe of the Red Deer; it was a livelihood. The salmon formed an important part of their diet in the spring, and what they did not eat immediately they dried and stored against the time when food was not so plentiful.

A few days after the salmon had been running strongly, Ronan and Tyr decided to try the upland valley where they had previously placed traps. Nel went with them, ostensibly to collect herbs. The river was narrow in the valley, and the fish trap consisted first of a stone dam the boys had built from bank to bank. Then, upstream of the dam, they had laid circular stone traps in the water to catch the fish when they swam through the slits that the builders had left strategically in the dam. Once the fish were in the trap, all Ronan and Tyr had to do was wade in with a harpoon and spear them.

Quickness was the essential skill if one was to be successful in spearing fish. The wooden-handled harpoon with its three points made out of antelope horn was an effective weapon only if one’s aim was sure and one’s arm was quick. Both Ronan and Tyr were famous for their expertise with the harpoon, and, after she had collected a token number of plants, Nel spent the day sitting on the shore of the river, enjoying the sun and watching the boys wade from trap to trap spearing salmon. Each time a fish was speared, the boys would hook a bone needle through its gill and run it along the sinew cord they had hung at their waists.

The day’s catch was a good one, and the baskets Nel had brought were filled with fish when the three of them finally turned toward home. The boys each carried a basket, and Nel carried the harpoons. The three of them were pleased with the catch, and with each other, and they walked along easily, talking softly and occasionally laughing at a joke.

Once they were back home they separated. Tyr took one of the baskets to his mother so she could gut the fish for him, while Ronan and Nel worked together on the other one. It was a tedious and a dirty job; each salmon had to be slit open, its precious oil poured into a reindeer bladder for safekeeping, and then the fish had to be hung to dry.

“Whew,” Ronan said when at last they were finished. “I am as oily and as fishy-smelling as those salmon. I’m going down to the river to wash.” He looked at Nel critically. “You had better come too.”

It was late and cookfires were being lit in all the huts. Nel sniffed the air longingly, but said, “All right. Just let me get Nigak first.”

Ronan waited while Nel ran off to where she had tied Nigak to keep him out of their way while they were working on the fish. He crossed his ankles, leaned on his harpoon, and stared assessingly up at the sky. The weather had been clear for several days now, and it looked as if it was going to hold. He thought; perhaps tomorrow I will hunt that great stag Pier saw yesterday.

Suddenly an enormous weight barreled into him. If he had not been leaning on his harpoon, he would have been knocked over. It was Nigak, standing upright with his great paws on Ronan’s shoulders. He began enthusiastically to lick Ronan’s face.

“Dhu!” Ronan grunted, as the wolf gave a playful snap at his nose. “All right, fellow. Down. Down!” Then, to Nel, he said, “I wish he would not do that!”

“I cannot train him out of it,” she said.

“Why not? The dogs don’t do this.” Ronan had managed to extricate himself from Nigak’s fond embrace.

“It seems to be one of the big differences between a wolf and a dog,” Nel said. “Both of them can learn to be fond of humans, but whereas a dog seems to realize that humans are not dogs, Nigak does not seem to know that we are not wolves.”

“Is that why he persists in this face licking and muzzle biting of his?”

Nel nodded. “I think so. It is the way wolves greet each other, you see.”

“He thinks we are wolves?”

She nodded again.

Ronan grinned. “This is one very confused wolf, Nel.”

“Well, we are his family, you and I. We have been since he was but a pup. Why shouldn’t he think we are wolves?”

“The dogs don’t think we are dogs,” Ronan pointed out.

“Dogs have lived with men for a long time. Wolves haven’t.”

“I suppose that is so,” Ronan murmured. He began to walk toward the river, and Nel and Nigak fell in beside him.

“I brought some soapwort,” Nel said, and she held up the plant so he could see it. Ronan grunted.

Nel regarded him curiously. After a moment, she asked, “Were you sad when Borba married?”

He looked surprised. “Na. Why should I have been?”

“I thought you liked her.”

“I do like her. I like her so much that I hope she is happy in her marriage.”

“Oh,” said Nel, and her face brightened.

They had reached the river’s shore. It was late afternoon, and the water looked gray and cold. The men and the boats had left the river an hour since, and the fishing nets were folded on the shore, ready for the morrow. Ronan raised his hand to his nose, sniffed, and said, “I cannot stand the stink of fish on me any longer. I am going to get into the water.”

Nel did not seem surprised by this decision. All she said was, “You did not bring a change of clothes.”

He shrugged. “I will just have to put these back on.”

“Those clothes will only smell you up again.”

He shrugged once more.

“I’ll fetch a fresh shirt for you,” she offered.

“Will you, minnow? Go to the men’s cave and ask whoever is there to give you one. They know where my things are kept. And trousers, too. I have a clean pair.”

“All right.” Nel handed him the soapwort and ran off, Nigak loping beside her.

Ronan went along the river to a place where the shore was screened from the homesite by a stand of birch and pine trees. Swiftly, he stripped off his clothes and waded into the freezing river. His teeth chattered as he began to work up some suds with the soapwort. He hoped Nel would hurry.

She must have run full speed, for by the time he was ready to come out, she was back with his clothes. She had also brought an old deerskin for him to use as a towel.

“Good girl,” he said, taking it from her and beginning to rub himself briskly. When he had finished, she handed him his trousers.

“How come you don’t have any hair on your chest?” she asked him when he had tied the leather drawstring around his waist and was reaching for his shirt.

He shrugged. “None ever grew there. I don’t know why.”

“It grew everywhere else.”

He grinned.

“I haven’t started to grow hair anywhere,” she said sadly. “My stepmother said the other day that I would probably not reach initiation until I was as old as Fali.”

“Don’t pay her any mind,” he advised. He was running his fingers through his newly washed hair to untangle it. Then, as he began to rebraid it, he asked pointedly, “Aren’t you going to wash? You were gutting fish too.”

She gave him a sunny smile. “I am going right now to wash my hands.”

He finished tying the leather thong that fastened his braid and shook his head. She tried another tack. “Ronan, I was nice enough to get your clothes for you…” Then, as he began to walk toward her, she wailed, “The water is so cold!”

“You don’t have to take off all your clothes. Just roll up your trousers. Here, I’ll do it for you.” He dropped down onto his heels and began to roll the deerskin trousers up to her knees.

Her legs had lengthened in the last year, but they were still thin as sticks, he thought. Her skin was beautiful, though, creamy white and smooth as ivory. Except for the scar on her right calf. He remembered the day she had got that scar, climbing a sheer rock face after a stranded baby lamb. Nel and her animals! he thought, finished rolling, and stood up. “Come on, in you go.”

She cast him a long-suffering look, but took the soapwort from his hand and waded in. “Wash your hair,” he said as she bent to wet her face.

“Ronan!” It was a cry of anguish. “I’m cold!”

“Your hair looks almost as black as mine,” came the inexorable reply. “Wash it.”

“But my shirt will get wet and my stepmother will scold.”

“Take it off then. I’ll hold it for you.”

The sun was setting and the clear air was cold. The river water was very cold. But Nel’s hair was very dirty, Ronan thought. That stepmother of hers would never think to wash it for her. If he didn’t watch out for her, she would be utterly filthy. Nel herself, unfortunately, placed little value on personal cleanliness.

He watched as she pulled the shirt over her head. Her poor skinny little body was covered in gooseflesh. He caught the shirt she tossed to him, crossed his arms over his own chest for warmth, and watched as she washed her hair. “Come here,” he said when she had finished, “and I’ll dry it for you.”

She splashed through the water to stand in front of him, and he took the deerskin and toweled her head. Suddenly she put her arms around his waist and burrowed against him. “I’m s-so cold,” she said.

“Poor little minnow.” She was shivering and he rubbed his hands up and down her back to warm her. His hand looked very dark against her ivory skin. “Come on, get into your shirt and you’ll feel warmer.” She held up her arms and let him pull it over her head. Her damp hair hung down her back, and he raked his fingers through it as he had done with his own and braided it for her.

“Make sure you put a comb through it when you get home,” he ordered. “You have very pretty hair, if only you would take care of it.”

She looked up at him. Her long dark lashes were stuck together with wet. “Guess what I found yesterday, Ronan. A baby scimitar cat.”

He groaned. “Not another orphan, Nel.”

“She is very sweet,” Nel assured him. Her mouth looked suddenly tragic. “But I am afraid that Olma will not let me bring her home.”

Ronan sighed. “I suppose I could fix you some place to keep her.”

Her smile was radiant. “Thank you, Ronan.”

He shook his head, put a hand on the nape of her neck, and walked her back to the camp.

* * * *

Summer came, the reindeer and red deer migrated into the higher pastures, and the hunters of the tribe moved to their summer camp on the Narrow River the better to hunt them. As usual, the Mistress remained at the tribe’s permanent homesite, but for the first time Morna was old enough to accompany the men and the initiated girls.

There was something about the air in the higher altitudes that Ronan particularly loved. It was so clear. One time, during Antelope Moon, he had gone with Neihle through the Buffalo Pass into the valley of the Atata River to trade with the men of the Tribe of the Buffalo, and he had found the heights of the pass wonderfully exhilarating.

The Tribe of the Buffalo followed the Way of Sky God, and Ronan had carefully watched the workings of the tribe during the two days that he and Neihle spent in its caves. Ronan found many of their ways extremely strange. Part of him was excited to see the obvious dominance of the men of the tribe, and part of him was deeply puzzled. Even though the men ruled, he thought they seemed to be missing many of life’s greatest pleasures.

The young unmarried girls, the ones Neihle had obviously brought him to see, were kept separated from the men. They did not mate until they were wed, Ronan was told. The reason for this was that the men of the Buffalo wished to ensure the paternity of their children. Ronan held his tongue, but privately he thought that the men of the Buffalo were fools, What did it matter if another man had fathered your wife’s first child? What Ronan did not understand was that the men of the Red Deer had a different relationship with their children than did the men of the Buffalo. As in all matrilineal societies, a Red Deer child belonged to its mother, whereas a Buffalo child, coming from a patrilineal society, belonged to its father. These differing outlooks accounted for very different attitudes about the importance of a child’s paternity.

* * * *

Summer passed too quickly. The nights were coming faster, and frost had already descended on the highest pastures, when Neihle sought his nephew out one afternoon to invite him to make a return trip to the Tribe of the Buffalo.

“Haras, the chief, has several girls who will need husbands this year,” Neihle said. “I am thinking, Ronan, that you would be happy in the Buffalo tribe.”

Ronan looked up from the hare he was skinning. The two men were alone in front of the big upper cave, and when Ronan did not reply, Neihle added, “The Mistress will give you a good bride price.”

At that, Ronan’s mouth quirked humorlessly. “I am sure of that, Uncle.” He put down his flint knife and rose to his feet. “I am not so sure that I wish to leave my own tribe, however.”

Neihle’s voice was gentle. “I am thinking you will have to, lad, sooner or later.”

Ronan was staring down at his bloody hands. “Why?”

“You know why,” Neihle replied. “This is not a tribe for a male chief, Ronan, and you will be happier in a tribe that is.”

Ronan did not look up. “I would have no claims to be chief in a different tribe, Neihle. Here…here I have claims.”

There was a startled silence. Then Neihle spoke: “You have no claims here. You are a man and this is a tribe that follows the Goddess. You have grown up here, Ronan. Surely this is something you understand.”

Ronan slowly flexed his bloodstained hands. “If this is so, Neihle, then why do you say the Mistress fears me?”

“She does not fear you for herself,” Neihle said. “It is for Morna that she fears.”

“Sa. She fears for Morna. The Chosen One.” At last Ronan turned to look at Neihle. His mouth was thin. “Wouldn’t you rather be led by me, Neihle, than by Morna?”