Daughter of Lir (75 page)

oOo

Sarama was rather too glad to leave the old men’s circle.
It had always been the Old Woman’s part to enter it when rite or the Mare’s
will ordained; doing that, walking where and as the Old Woman had walked,
brought back the grief and some of the chill of winter, the black days of the
Old Woman’s sickness and the blacker ones of her death and consecration to the
goddess. Alone in the freezing cold, Sarama had performed the rite, all of it,
every step and word and gesture, no matter how terrible, no matter how grim the
task.

Clean white bones lay under the earth in the Mare’s Place,
half a moon’s ride from the place of gathering; the Old Mare’s white tail
fluttered from the summit of her hill. Other, far older bones lay beneath those
that Sarama had laid there, bones on bones from time before time, mares’ bones
and women’s bones laid one atop the other till together they had made a high
and sacred hill.

“You are the last,” the Old Woman had said before she died.
“You, and she”—tilting her age-ravaged chin toward the Young Mare. “Her blood
continues in certain of the herds, but of her servants are none left, save only
you. Once we were a tribe, a great throng of us. Then the tribes of men ran
over us, outnumbered us, diminished us into veiled and feeble women. Your line
we kept pure, as pure as it could be; but it dwindled and faded, and now there
is but one. Be strong, my child. Be mindful. Remember.”

Sarama had promised to remember. She had made other
promises, too, promises that she must keep or her soul would die.

But now, this moment, having done her duty by the old man
her father, she was free to be a part of the tribe again. The Mare nipped
lightly at her shoulder, bidding Sarama recall her presence. Might she not go
now? The wind was calling her.

“The stallions, rather,” Sarama said. The Mare flattened her
little lean ears and snapped with temper. Sarama laughed, which made her wheel
and lash out with a wicked heel; but Sarama was too quick for her.

She went to torment the stallions in their tethered lines.
Sarama lingered till her brother came loping up beside her, all long limbs and
young male arrogance. He made her think of a stallion himself; but she was not
minded just then to torment him.

He dropped an arm about her shoulders, easily, as if they had
been parted only yesterday and not a year and more ago, and swept her toward
the tents of the White Horse. “You’ll be hungry,” he said, “and thirsty—
Aiiii!
such a thirst as must be on you.
We have a new thing that came from the sunrise countries, a drink that the gods
must drink in the houses above the sky. Come, I’ll fill you a cup.”

Sarama had no desire to dizzy and fuddle herself with strong
drink, but she let him have his way. With Agni, as with the fire he was named
for, that was always a wise thing.

Their father’s tent was kingly broad, housing as it did all
the wives that he had won in battle or in debts of honor, with their daughters
and their youngest sons, and such of the grown sons as were either unmarried or
unbound to one of the companies of young men. It surprised Sarama, somewhat, to
find that Agni had not gone off to run with a pack.

He did not explain or excuse himself. All the brothers were
gone, and many of the sisters, too, on this night of all the year; but the
wives were there still. They could go nowhere, do nothing, till their husband
gave them leave.

Sarama’s arrival sent them into a flurry. She had never
understood them, never comprehended minds and spirits so utterly encompassed by
the walls of a tent. That there were factions among them she knew; she had been
subjected to no few of those in the times when she was sent to visit her
father’s tent. But she was part of none of them. In time and with her silent
persistence, they had learned to keep a respectful distance; to conceal either
envy or rancor, and never to bid her choose sides in one of their wrangles.

They knew in their bellies what she had had to tell their
husband in raw half-shaped words. The women always knew. Each met her eyes
boldly or looked circumspectly away, as her character dictated. No one fell in
worship at her feet. Such was not done in the tents among the women.

They brought her the new thing that Agni had spoken of, the
thing called wine: dark and potent and richly sweet, almost too sweet, and
headier by far than kumiss. Sarama was not sure what she thought of it. It was
too strong, maybe. Too full of the spirit that reft men of their wits.

Agni drank as little as she did, she noticed, though he had
made great vaunt of its excellence. Agni was not the toplofty young fool he too
often liked to seem.

He caught her staring at him; stared back hard, eyes
gleaming amber beneath ruddy brows, and laughed for gladness. “Ah, sister,” he
said. “It’s good to have you here again.”

Sarama could not say that it was good to be in this place;
not with such tidings as she had brought. Still she could say, and say truly,
“I’m glad to rest eyes on you again, my brother. Even if I do have to crane my
neck to do it.”

He grinned, inordinately proud of himself.

He might be as tall as the sky, but she knew a trick or two.
She fell on him while he basked in his own grandeur, toppled him with
gratifying ease, and sat on him till he cried for mercy. Which he did soon
enough: and that was all as it used to be, as it well should be. Even he, in
the end, was persuaded to admit to that.

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We hope you have enjoyed this sample of
White Mare’s Daughter
by Judith Tarr

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