Daughter of Lir (23 page)

So, Emry thought. This was how a Mother ruled in the tribes:
in secret, through the face and body of a man. This man seemed sunk in torpor.
The chant, the smoke, wreathed him about.

“In my country,” Emry said, “the Mother of the people speaks
directly to her children—and yes, to strangers, too. She needs no man to say
her words for her.”

“It is different here,” said Etena’s voice. He could see the
shadowy shape of her, and catch a gleam of eyes. “Is it true, then? Are you
royal born of your people?”

“I am the king’s son of Lir,” Emry said—for good or ill.

“Have you no fear of our holding you for ransom?”

“You can do that,” he granted her. “But why?”

“Many reasons,” she said. “Your country is rich. We have not
yet conquered it. And,” she said, “women rule it. That is greatly against
nature.”

“We believe that it’s against nature for men to rule.”

“You, too?”

He showed her his teeth. It was mostly mirth. “I was
properly brought up,” he said.

“And yet you are a prince,” she said. “There is a king,
yes?”

“A king to conduct the wars. A Mother to rule.”

“There are wars among the gods?”

“Do you think that we are gods?”

“Are you?”

“Does it profit me to be one?”

“Ah,” she said. “You are a trader after all.”

“May I not be all of those things—prince and god and
trader?”

She moved out of the shadows. The drone of the
serving-women’s chant faltered. This must be a shocking thing, for a king’s
wife to show herself to a man, even in the king’s presence. Only the king
seemed not to notice or to care. His eyelids had fallen shut; he snored softly.

Etena stood behind him as if to use him for a shield. Emry
could see nothing amid the veils but her eyes. They had a hunger in them that
he knew rather well.

Women liked him. Some loved him. That was a blessing of his
blood and breeding, and yes, the beauty that went with it. They had bred for it
since the dawn time, or so it was said.

“In my country,” he said, “it’s a woman’s privilege to
choose the man whom she will lie with.”

He had shocked the singers into silence. Etena’s hiss of
breath was distinct, but she kept her wits about her. “My husband could geld
you for that.”

“For what? For speaking the truth?”

“For suggesting a thing that is a great crime among the
tribes.”

“It’s a crime for a woman to fancy a man?”

“She may fancy no man but the one to whom she has been
given, or who has taken her by right of conquest.”

“She has no say in it? At all?”

“None,” said Etena.

“That,” said Emry after a pause, “is a difficult thing.”

“Do you fancy me?”

He blinked. “Lady, I’ve seen nothing of you but your eyes.”

That was perhaps too blunt an answer, but it was the only
one he could give.

She stood behind the wall of her somnolent husband and
stripped off her veils. She had been beautiful once, and probably very greatly
so; but such a beauty as hers bloomed early and faded fast. The frost was on
her spirit, and bitterness cankered deep.

He pitied her. He prayed she did not see it. Because he was
well brought up, and because he never could bear to wound a heart, he said, “I
see a beauty very like that of my own people. Are you a westerner, too?”

“I come from Blackroot tribe,” she said, “far to the east of
here.” Her dark eves narrowed, raking his face. “Do you fancy me?” she asked
again.

“If I did,” he said, “it would never be proper to admit it.”

“If I bade you lie with me, would you?”

He raised his shoulders, spread his hands. “In the way of my
people, I would be greatly remiss to refuse. In the way of yours, I would be
criminal to accept.”

“Spoken like a prince,” she said. “Now tell me. How long
will your traders linger here?”

“As long as there is trading,” Emry said, “we will trade.”

“Will you go on past us after?”

“That,” said Emry, “is for the caravan-master to say. I am
but a guard, lady—that is the truth. Perhaps you should speak with him.”

“Is he the king of your people?”

That, Emry could answer without prevarication. “Oh, no,
lady. He’s lord of his caravan, but no more than that.”

He could not tell if she believed him. Her eyes seemed
unable to turn away from his face. How long had it been, he wondered, since she
saw a man who looked like one of her tribe? The white-skinned king asleep at
her feet held no more of her heart, he would wager, than if he had been one of
the camp dogs.

A dog could not be a shield for her, or give her power to
rule this most terrible of conquering tribes. He had begun some while since to
see why she had brought him here. It was a sad thing, and dangerous. He did not
doubt at all that she would kill him if he failed to answer her as she wished.
He had seen eyes like hers in tribesmen raiding across the river, empty of
mercy and strangers to compassion. She knew only power, and the lure of a fine
young body.

He bowed to her with all courtesy, and smiled, and did what
a prince could do: undismissed, he left her presence.

As he had hoped, she did not call out to him, or send one of
her women to fetch him back. He was almost pathetically grateful to escape that
place and that presence. The open air, even rich with the effluvia of a large
and none too cleanly tribe, was dizzying in its purity. He breathed great
lungfuls of it.

The king’s wild-haired men were nowhere to be seen. He
straightened his back and lifted his chin and began to walk back toward the
traders’ camp.

He had not gone far before someone fell in beside him. It
was a man not nearly as tall as he was, but only a little less broad. He was
dark, though not as dark as Emry.

Emry knew him in a glance: one of the princes, the one who
was Etena’s son—Dias, that was his name. But, Emry had heard, mother and son
were not friends. This prince was closely allied with the one who had brought
the traders into the camp.

Factions, he thought. And he had fallen into the midst of
them.

He greeted Dias with a nod. The prince strode beside him,
matching his stride. After a little while Dias said, “I should kill you, you
know. For looking on my mother’s face.”

Emry slanted a glance at him. “You were listening,” he said.

“I saw you go in,” said Dias. “I followed.”

“Will you kill me?”

“Not today,” Dias said. “She wants you, you know—if you
really are a king’s heir. She can use you as she uses my father.”

“Not where I come from,” Emry said, yet his heart was cold.
There was no true Mother in Lir, and her daughter was here, bound to the White
Mare. This woman whose lust was for power, who ruled this tribe from the
shadows, well might stretch out her hand toward the Goddess’ country.

“If you were wise,” Dias said, “you would leave soon, and
give no warning. Pack up in the dark and be far away by morning. Then pray my
mother has no power to find you.”

“Our Goddess is very strong,” Emry said.

“Pray to her, then,” said Dias.

He looked ready to turn away, but Emry stopped him with a
word. “Why? Why warn us?”

“I am not my mother’s friend,” Dias said.

“That is a great sadness,” said Emry.

“It is what is.” Dias saluted him as the horsemen saluted
one another. “Look to yourself, westerner. And watch your back.”

Rhian had not gone to the prince in the night. It was a
thing she planned carefully, so that he would want her more when she came to
him again. But she had not expected to lie awake in the familiar tent, staring
at the shadows raised by the lamp’s flicker, and remember the touch of his
hands on her body. Such skillful hands for a man so well honed in war, so subtle
in their touch—and what had surprised her more than anything, so finely tuned
to her pleasure. He was not at all as she had thought a lord of chariots would
be.

She had gone to him in order to learn what he knew, and to
bind him to her will. She had not expected to want him for himself.

It was a long dull while until morning. Then, in the way of
sleepless nights, she fell into a sodden doze. When she dragged herself out of
it, the sun was halfway toward the zenith, and the air in the tent was stuffy
and hot. She pulled on the first garment that came to hand, made what order she
could of her hair, and stumbled out.

It was not until she had relieved herself in the trench
outside the traders’ camp, and washed and combed and plaited her hair beside
the river, that the stares of those she had passed made sense to her. She had
put on breeches but no tunic. The day’s warmth more than justified it, but this
was not her own country.

If she was wise she would go back and cover herself, as Hoel
put it—echoing the sentiments of the tribes. But she was cross-grained this
morning. She skirted the edges of the tribe’s camp, turning toward the place
where the chariotmakers were.

Somewhat before she came there, she paused. The charioteers
were out in force, galloping in companies across the long level. The shouts and
cries of men, the rumble of wheels, struck her with almost painful intensity.

She had dreamed this. This was the face of war. They were
laughing now, singing and taunting one another in high glee. No one would die,
but in this game of war they prepared for blood and slaughter.

It was splendid. Some of the horses were young and inclined
to be confused, and some of the charioteers had a green and awkward look, and
that caused its share of mayhem. But even that was wonderful. They were a glory
of speed: the swift horses, the tossing manes, the dizzy whirl of the wheels
over the flattened grass.

He led one of the sides—of course. His hair was as bright as
molten copper in the sunlight. He drove a pair of strong stallions, a dun and a
bay. The bay was younger, she thought, and hotter. The dun was a seasoned
campaigner: he was steady when the other fretted and tossed his head. He was
the teacher, the bay his pupil. Minas was the guide and ruler of them both.

The others rode two to a chariot—charioteer and fighting
man, the latter armed with a headless spear or a club that looked like the
thighbone of an ox. Those were weapons enough to break bones, but the warriors
laughed at them.

They howled with mirth when a charioteer, struck full on the
head by a war-club, somersaulted over the rim of the chariot and tangled in
trailing reins. His team bolted. His fellow in the chariot scrambled to do who
knew what, tripped, and fell backward out of the car.

That was hilarious, but when the horses, maddened with
confusion, ran headlong into another chariot, the men nearby were nigh
prostrate with laughter. Some had even stopped their chariots and flung
themselves down, rolling and kicking.

Rhian could not bear it. She ran onto the field, light and
swift as the wind could carry her, and darted in among the horses and chariots.
Those that had bolted had freed themselves somehow from the second chariot. The
charioteer lay groaning near it. He was alive: good. She went after the horses,
but carefully, as horsemen did. She did not run behind them, but angled toward
them, watching to see how they were slowing and where they seemed determined to
be. She met them there, caught reins, set her weight against them.

The horses were well trained to the touch of a hand. They
reared in protest, but they did not strike her. They halted with her still on
her feet, and the battered chariot still rolling behind them.

She soothed them with voice and hand. They were lovely, deep
bays matched even to the star on the forehead, with long glossy manes and
finely carved faces. They blew gently on her hands, and breathed deep of her
hair.

A scream of pure rage sent them reeling back. Rhian kept her
grip on them, and on herself, too. When she knew they would be still, she
turned.

The mare was in a furious temper. Her ears were flat back.
Her neck was snaky. Her teeth were bared.

Someone, it seemed, had tried to capture her. There was a
broken rope about her neck. That would have tried her patience sorely, but she
had kept her true rage for the army of men and horses and chariots that stood
between herself and Rhian. Not all of them had the sense to clear the way, or
could do it in the press of chariots.

She cleared them with teeth and hooves and the sheer white
terror of her presence. Then at last she came to a halt, face to face with
Rhian, and snorted explosively. The bays cringed. She snapped her teeth in
their faces.

“That,” said Rhian, “will be quite enough.”

The mare flung up her head in outrage, but Rhian stood
steady. The mare backed a single, draggingly reluctant step.

Rhian nodded briskly and let go the stallions’ reins. As she
had hoped, they stayed where she left them. She caught the hank of mane at the
mare’s withers and swung astride. The mare was still in a temper, but a sigh
escaped her. Safe, her body said. Rhian was safe.

Rhian stroked her neck. “Ah, poor goddess. You were afraid
for me.”

The mare snorted and shook her mane. Rhian smiled but refrained
from commentary.

She looked up to find herself the center of a broad circle.
Men and horses alike were staring as if they could not stop. Again, too late,
she remembered what she was and was not wearing.

She grinned and saluted them. The mare matched the grin.
When she began to walk forward, horses and chariots melted out of her way.

All but one. Minas the prince held his stallions steady,
though they jibbed and fought. They knew better than to stand in the way of any
mare, let alone one who was a goddess.

But Minas was a prince, and she had him—yes, she had him.
His eyes looked everywhere but where his mind was. His voice was steadier than
she might have expected. “You are very bold.”