White Mare's Daughter (10 page)

“He had a few words,” said Rami. “Traders’ words. He saw an
image of the Lady, and he kept pointing to it and saying
Horse
, and then a word nobody knew. Why not
Goddess
?”

“She is everywhere,” Kosti said. People nodded, agreeing
with him, as was proper piety.

Danu stood up abruptly. “I believe there was a stranger,” he
said. “I believe he came out of the wood, and the people of the wood let him
pass. I do not believe he brought anything with him but a cow or two, or maybe
a deer. A tame deer—my sister had one once. What’s so remarkable about that?”

They stared at him. He was not given to sudden speech or to
outbursts of temper. But something about this story, endlessly repeated, put
him straight out of patience. “It’s a story,” he said, “told and retold till
there’s no telling truth from wild rumor. Ghosts!” he snorted. “Spirits—yes,
spirits of folly. What does any of it have to do with us? What should we care?”

He left them still staring, with a new tale to tell among
themselves: how the Mother’s son had lost his temper over nothing at all. They
would wonder, he had no doubt, which woman had provoked it, and laugh behind
their hands, and look to see who singled him out at the next fire-dance. Then
they would think they knew why he had been so unwontedly cross-grained.

It was nothing to do with women. He disliked the story, that
was all, and the monotony of its repetition. There was something else, a memory
that fled before he could grasp it, a flicker of fear from nowhere that he
could discern.

“Savages,” he muttered. “Horses. Who dreamed such a word? It
doesn’t mean anything. It’s air and nothing.”

He did not feel better for having said it. But duty—that
calmed him.

He had delayed unconscionably. The Mother from Larchwood
city would be here, and nothing would be ready for her. He quickened his pace
even as he stilled his mind, putting aside both temper and fear. By the time he
came to the Mother’s house, he was almost his quiet self again.

The Mother from Larchwood city arrived in state, well
before sundown but well after the Mother of Three Birds was ready for her. She
did great honor in the size of her company: not only a fair handful of her
daughters but even a few of her sons, with acolytes and servants, friends and
companions, and a flock of sheep and goats to aid in feeding them all.

The Mother of Three Birds received her guest at the edge of
her city, where the last houses looked over the green swell of the fields. She
had her daughters with her, and her acolytes, and such of the elders as could
be spared from duties about the city.

Tilia held the place of honor at the Mother’s left hand, her
heart-hand, as befit the one who would be Mother in her time. She had not met
the Mother from Larchwood before. Larchwood was far away, almost to the eastern
edge of the world.

It was a remarkable thing for a Mother to come so far
simply, as the messengers had said, to visit and pay respect to the greatest of
the Mothers in the heart of the world. Remarkable but not, thought Tilia,
incomprehensible. Everyone knew that Three Birds was the greatest city in the
world.

She kept her place and a properly respectful silence, but
her eyes and mind were well occupied. The stranger-Mother was older than her
own, and never so vastly beautiful.

Nor were her daughters as lovely as the daughters of Three
Birds. The one who stood in the heir’s place was a slender whip of a thing,
hardly more substance to her than there was to Chana. Surely a Mother’s heir
should be an image of the Mother, not of the young larch-tree from which her
city took its name.

The stranger was eyeing Tilia, too—admiring Tilia’s beauty,
surely, and judging her fitness to rule. Mothers’ heirs must do such things. It
was their duty.

Tilia smiled at her, because that also was duty. She barely
smiled back. Either she was a sour-faced creature by nature, or something
troubled her almost beyond the bounds of politeness.

Mother embraced Mother with much ceremony. They blessed one
another in the goddess’ name, spoke the words of greeting and of welcome. The
Mother of Three Birds took the Mother from Larchwood by the hand then and led
her into the city, a gesture that made her free of it, and named her friend and
sister.

Tilia took the daughter’s hand in turn. It was thin and
rather cold. Tilia could read nothing from it or from the face beside hers,
except that this Catin’s mind was troubled.

There would be time to ask. Now was time for ceremony, for
procession through the city to the Goddess’ house, for the blessing and the
solemn dance that would bind Larchwood and Three Birds in amity thereafter.

One might converse in the processional, but Catin appeared
to have no conversation. She walked mute at Tilia’s side, hand limp in Tilia’s.

If Tilia had been a bit of a fool, she might have thought
that Catin did not want to be here. But that was ridiculous. Who would not want
to be a guest in Three Birds?

oOo

From the eastward side of the city one walked past the
Mother’s house to reach the shrine. Tilia saw her brother standing in the door
as the procession passed by. As idle as he was managing to look, as if he had
leisure to hang about in doorways and stare at strangers, she did not doubt
that he had everything in hand within.

Danu was an admirable keeper of the household, though Tilia
would never have told him she thought so. It was best to keep a young man
humble. Otherwise he got too full of himself.

He was in very good looks today. He never seemed to be aware
of his fine dark eyes or his fine olive skin, or his lovely broad shoulders and
his long clever hands. Women could never forget; they were all a little in love
with him.

Tilia watched Catin out of the corner of her eye, to see if
she noticed how beautiful the young man was. Indeed she must have seen him: her
eyes passed right over him. Passed, and went on. They never even paused.

Tilia’s own eyes narrowed. Ignore him, would she? Tilia
would see about that. This was a Mother’s daughter: she was worthy of him.
Quite unlike that little nobody he was chasing after.

Then they were past, and Tilia could not in propriety crane
over her shoulder to see if he stayed to watch the rest. Catin, she was
deciding, was an odd and anxious creature—quite alien to the serenity that a
Mother was supposed to cultivate. And she had no taste in men at all.

oOo

The Lady’s house was full of birds. They came at her will,
some to nest, some to eat the fruits of her garden or to be fed at morning and
evening by the Mother’s acolytes, some even and occasionally to die.

They were all sacred while they lived in the shrine. No
hunter might follow them there, no cord or cage compel them. This was their
free place, their goddess’ sanctuary. Therefore she was called the Lady of the
Birds.

Tilia told all these things to Catin, aware that the others
listened, the sisters and brothers, even the Mother of Larchwood once she had
paid tribute at the Lady’s altar. “I suppose,” Tilia said, “that you worship
the Lady of the Wood, since you live so close to it.”

“The Lady of Wood and Water,” one said, but not Catin. It
was one of the sisters, a tall gawky child with a bold manner and a direct
stare. “Yes, we worship her, but above all we give our hearts to the Lady of
the Deer.”

“Aren’t they all one?” said Tilia.

“One may hope so,” the girl from Larchwood said.

Her Mother spoke with ponderous serenity, in the voice that
Mothers could put on with the power of their office. “We have walked far
today,” she said, “and rested seldom. It would be great pleasure to sit in a
place both cool and welcoming, and listen to the songs of the birds.”

The Mother of Three Birds betrayed no sign of annoyance at
what was almost an insult to her hospitality. She simply said, “Ah, sister; so
you have heard of the Lady’s bower. Come. All has been made ready for your
comfort.”

oOo

The Lady’s bower was her garden, a place of water and of
greenery set beside her shrine. There were trees there, tall and rich with
shade, trees so old that they were more than holy.

Once, Tilia had heard, they had been worshipped as goddesses
themselves, till the Lady came to teach the truth. They were still much
revered, great-trunked broad-crowned oaks standing in their circle, and in the
center, in the sunny space, the dance of a stream and the Lady’s pool, and a
riot of flowers.

There the Mother’s acolytes had spread the feast of welcome.
By ancient custom they had prepared no flesh of beast or bird, but of bread and
cheese and fruits of the earth, sweet honey and the nectar of flowers, herbs
and grains and green things, there was enough and more to sate the most avid
appetite.

Tilia forbore to regret the lack of coarser dishes, and the
absence of men, too. This was a women’s feast. Men were not allowed in this
place, not even to serve the feasters. Any man who dared it would have died.

It was very good, she thought, to be a woman.

oOo

There were times, Danu reflected, when it was a great
burden to be a man. The women’s feast was theirs to trouble with, and he was
glad of it, but he had had to see it prepared, and when the remains came back,
they were his to dispose of.

If such things had mattered greatly, he would have been glad
that he had taken that moment to see the procession pass; he had had no
opportunity since, to be sure, to look on the Mother’s guests. He was immersed
in kitchen duties when they came in from the feast, nor could he escape till
long after they had been shown to their beds.

It was nothing, he told himself. There were no great marvels
among them. They were strangers, and from farther away than any he had seen
before, and they spoke somewhat oddly, with a hint of a burr; but they were
women and men like any in Three Birds.

He did not know why he should have expected anything
extraordinary. A Mother might go on pilgrimage, might she not? Or she might
choose to visit a sister, if that sister happened to be Mother to a great
people. Mothers did such things. It was expected of them.

Nevertheless he wished he could have been a woman, to sit at
the feast in the grove where he was not allowed to go, and ask these strangers
why they had come. The few men who had come with them, sons and servants, were
taciturn, and not inclined to conversation. They were a dour lot; the women,
too, from what the servants and the acolytes said.

“As if they travel in the shadow of the Wood,” said Riki,
who was given to fancies.

Her sister acolytes hushed her, but Danu reckoned hers as
good a guess as any.

oOo

Danu woke the next morning to two voices, two Mothers
luring the sun from its lair. He had not heard such a thing before, a mingled
beauty, and perhaps a greater richness to the day, for having been called forth
by so much power.

This morning the sun was wan, veiled in cloud. The air bore
a scent of rain. Well for the household that yesterday had been the washing day.
Today should have been a day for scouring out the house, but the guests needed
looking after, feeding and plying with warmed wine and honeyed milk. The
Mothers lingered long in the shrine, sharing such wisdom as Mothers shared.
Their daughters and sons and servants mingled uneasily in a house grown small
in the embrace of the rain.

When guests were congenial the house would ring with
laughter. When they were dour as these were, uneasiness grew to annoyance, and
then to barbed silence. Tilia had taken a clear dislike to the stranger Catin,
and was not trying overly hard to hide it.

She caught Danu in the weaving room where he had sought
refuge, threading a loom. It was niggling, eye-wearing work by the light of a
lamp-cluster and such dim daylight as window and doorway let in. She blocked
much of that, so that he had to stop, squinting up at the shadow of her.

Tilia never wasted time in preliminaries. “Come out of
here,” she said, “and rescue me. I can’t get a word from her, not even
yes
or
no
. You’re much more charming than I am, and prettier, too. See if
you can’t get her to talk.”

Danu did not move. “Why? What do you want her to say?”

“Anything,” said Tilia. “She’s not mute, I heard her mutter
something to one of her sisters—criticizing my manners, I don’t doubt. Do you
think she’s annoyed because we didn’t offer her the pick of our men to keep her
warm last night?”

“It was a warm night,” Danu said.

Tilia stamped her foot. “Oh, you! Come out here and stop
being contrary. I’m at wits’ end.”

“You are not,” said Danu, but he rose stiffly, stretching
the kinks out of his back. “You want me to do your duty for you. Is she as
unpleasant as that?”

“She’s not unpleasant. She’s not anything, that I can tell.
None of them is. You’d think they were traveling to a funeral, they’re so sour
in the face.”

Danu sighed. “Someday you’re going to have to learn to be
charming yourself, and stop expecting me to do it for you.”

“Why? Because you’ll run off with Chana and be a trader?”

“No,” said Danu. “Because I’ll run off with this Catin and
never see Three Birds again.”

“She’s not good enough for you, either,” Tilia said. She
clasped him by the hand and pulled him out into the soft drizzle of rain. “I’m
going to find you someone nearby, with pleasant manners and some small
acquaintance with laughter. But until I do, you can charm Catin into something
resembling a smile.”

“What will you give me if I do that?”

Her eyes narrowed. He smiled sweetly. She hissed at him, but
she said, “My necklace with the blue beads.”

“Oh, you hold me cheap! Make it your golden armlet and I’ll
do it.”

“I can’t do that,” she said. “It’s gold.”