SILK AND SECRETS (23 page)

Fortunately half a dozen men chimed in with answers, for Dil Assa seemed disinclined to reply. After listening for a few minutes, Ross thought he understood what he might expect of a Turkoman-trained horse.

To accustom Rabat to his voice, Ross spent a few moments stroking the wary animal’s neck and talking softly in English. Then, after checking the tightness of the girth and lengthening the stirrups, he swung lightly into the saddle.

Outraged by the stranger’s impertinence, Rabat immediately exploded into action, bunching his muscles and rearing up in a furious attempt to dislodge his unwelcome rider. The stallion had a really impressive repertoire of bucks, twists, and sideways hops, but Ross had noted the warning in Dil Assa’s words and he was prepared for such behavior. As the audience prudently withdrew to a safe distance, there followed a brief, intense bout in which man and horse tested each other’s mettle.

It required all of Ross’s strength and concentration to stay on the animal’s back and establish which of them was in charge, but as Rabat whipped sideways like a mongoose, Ross did catch one glimpse of Juliet. Even though she was veiled, he sensed her satisfaction with his performance. Score one for the British.

There was no real vice in the white horse, just high spirits and a mischievous refusal to tamely accept an unproved rider. After Rabat had burned off some of his excess energy, he settled down and began to respond to reins and knees.

Wanting to know just what his mount could do, Ross rode away from the tents into the open plain. Then he put the stallion through its paces, systematically learning how to make the beast stop, wheel, and jump. Rabat was amazingly quick, instantly sensing what his rider wanted. He could also turn on a farthing, and was one of the most powerful jumpers Ross had ever ridden. Testing the horse’s capabilities was similar to testing a new rifle, only more challenging, because Rabat had a mind of his own.

The unfamiliar harness also required getting used to. There was only a single pair of reins, and the saddle was very high in front and back. In addition, a tall horn rose from the pommel. The configuration was unusual, but it would offer valuable support for a rider engaging in wild
bozkashi
maneuvers.

After a quarter-hour of increasingly strenuous activity, Ross felt that he and the stallion had developed a reasonable understanding of each other. As a final experiment, he put Rabat into a full blazing gallop, then grasped the saddle horn and slid down so that most of his body hung precariously over the stony soil. It was a dangerous trial, for a swerve or misstep by the horse would pitch Ross headfirst into the ground at high speed.

But in spite of his rider’s unbalanced weight, the stallion held rock-steady as Ross plucked one of the fragile desert flowers. He pulled himself back into the saddle, then slowed to a canter and rode back to the watching Turkomans, laughing from sheer exhilaration. Most of the audience was smiling and calling out approving comments, but Dil Assa watched in dead silence.

Undeterred by his host’s expression, Ross exclaimed, “Magnificent, Dil Assa! If you had the schooling of Rabat, he does you great honor.”

With a blend of irritation and grudging respect, Dil Assa growled, “Aye, I trained him. When Rabat was born, I caught him with my own hands so he would not fall to the earth and break his wings. When he nursed, I fed his mother a dozen eggs a day so his coat would be sleek. For three years he ran completely free, unhampered by bridle or saddle. For six years more I have trained him in all the maneuvers of the game. There is no finer
bozkashi
mount anywhere. See that you use him well.”

“I shall try to prove worthy,” Ross said. “By the way, do you have another mount that my servant can use to ride with us to the site of the
bozkashi
match?”

Eyes narrowed with malice, Dil Assa scanned the remaining horses. After mounting a fiery-looking dark bay, he said, “Your Tuareg slave can ride that chestnut.”

Speaking in Tamahak, as if translating, Ross told Juliet, “Careful, slave. I think our kind host wants to see someone’s neck broken today.”

Without deigning to reply, Juliet adjusted the chestnut’s cinch and stirrups, then mounted. The nervous young gelding was not as hell-bent on having its own way as Rabat, but it was very skittish, so another battle for control took place. Juliet did not have Ross’s strength, but she had an uncanny ability to sense what a horse would do next, and she brought the chestnut into order very quickly.

Dil Assa scowled. “Perhaps your slave should also play
bozkashi
today.”

“No,” Ross said flatly. “If Jalal is injured, who will care for my camels?”

Accepting the logic of that, Dil Assa ordered the rest of his men to mount, and the group set off to the site of the
bozkashi
match. It was about two miles away, and as Juliet had predicted, hundreds of spectators had arrived and were spread out along the dunes, ready, willing, and eager to follow the action. Numerous peddlers were also present, busily offering food and drink to the crowd.

It was easy to pick out the
bozkashi
players, for they were idling about on their mounts. There were about three dozen, all of them lean and dangerous-looking. Most wore caps edged with karakul or fox fur, and all carried the short, ugly whips.

Juliet slid off the chestnut and handed the reins to one of the Turkomans, then went on foot to find Saleh and Murad. Dil Assa rode over and gave Ross a terse set of explanations. “There is the
boz,
the goat.” The headless, sand-weighted carcass lay in the middle of a circle drawn with white quicklime.

He waved his hand toward the horizon. “There is the pole which the
boz
must be carried around. Since the sun is hot and this is only a small, friendly match, the pole was set near.” In fact, it was just barely visible in the distance.

Finally he indicated the quicklime circle. “The
boz
must be returned to the
hallal,
the circle of justice. The man who throws it in the circle is the winner.” With a wolfish flash of teeth, Dil Assa said, “Shall we begin, my ferengi friend?”

“Ready when you are,” Ross said pleasantly.

At Dil Assa’s signal, the
bozkashi
master, an older man with a whip-scarred face, gave a shrill whistle between his fingers. Immediately the players trotted over and gathered in a rough circle around the goat. Ross found a place opposite Dil Assa. The air vibrated with tension as the riders jockeyed for position, their faces avid with the desire to be first and fiercest.

The master raised his arm, then chopped it down. “Begin!”

Instantly the circle dissolved into a maelstrom of chaotic activity as the riders spurred their horses forward. Only Ross held back, preferring to observe until he better understood the game.

A slightly built man proved quickest, and he leaned over and jerked the goat from the ground. Immediately it was ripped away by two players who began pulling on different legs, both of them screaming like fishwives. A third man drove his horse between their mounts and reared his horse straight up, separating the other two so he could seize possession himself.

A whirlwind of activity followed as the goat changed hands over and over, passing high and low, over necks and saddles and under horses’ bellies. Twice it fell to the ground, only to be instantly snatched up again. It was a scene of pure savagery, and soon the air was heavy with the pungent scents of horse, sweat, blood, and leather. Ross learned that the whips were less for horses than opponents. Hands and faces were slashed to the bone, but in the frenzy of competition, no one noticed. High-heeled boots kept riders in their stirrups when they lunged out to seize the prize, eyes wild and whips clamped between their teeth.

It was not just the players who fought, for their horses were equally aggressive, charging into the fracas with bared teeth, chopping hooves, and neighs of challenge. Riders and horses moved as one, like a race of centaurs in which a single will drove both man and mount. And at the very center of the storm was Dil Assa, the wildest of the wild.

Once the swirling mass of riders surged into the crowd. Howling spectators scattered in all directions, but some were not quick enough, and when the
bozkashi
action moved away, three bruised and complaining casualties were left behind.

Surrounded by an eye-stinging cloud of yellow dust, the struggling mass of riders slowly moved in the direction of the pole. To Ross it seemed that most of the players and their mounts would exhaust themselves long before the circle of justice was reached. By holding back and husbanding himself and his horse, a player would have a much better chance of becoming the ultimate winner. But strategy meant nothing to the men in front of him; they played for the sheer barbaric joy of it.

The tides of violence whirled around Ross and Rabat, kindling a fire in the blood that called them to surrender to the madness and join that furious tumult. Trained and honed for
bozkashi,
the white stallion fought to join the fray, but Ross held him back, needing the full force of his arms and knees to keep the raging horse under control.

Even more fiercely than he fought his horse, Ross battled the siren lure of violence. He had intended to participate in a moderate way once he had observed how the game was played, but now he feared joining in. It would be easy, so easy, to drown in that swirling chaos, to lose all balance and restraint.

Though there had been a handful of times in his life when his control had been on the edge of shattering, Ross had never succumbed, for on some deep level he feared what might happen if he did. If he once gave way to madness, would he ever again be free of it? And so he held back, keeping himself and Rabat on the edges of the fray.

The match progressed slowly, every inch fought over with grim determination until the
boz
was three-quarters of the way to the pole. Then a single rider managed to break clear, the goat slung across his saddlebow.

It was Dil Assa. In spite of hot pursuit, for a few brief glorious minutes he ran free as the crowd shrieked encouragement. He gave a bellow of triumph as he circled the pole, but in order to reach the goal, he had to return the way he had come—and when he did, his opponents were waiting for him. Once more the match turned into a free-for-all.

Ross had been riding along at the edge of the main group, watching but not taking part, more concerned with his inner struggle for mastery than with who had possession of the increasingly ragged goat. Then suddenly Dil Assa appeared before him, eyes wild and face sheened with sweat and blood.

“Coward!” he snarled. “You waste the finest
bozkashi
horse that ever lived. You are less than a man.” Far beyond remembering the promise he had made to the khalifa, he raised his heavy lead-tipped whip and slashed it at Ross’s face. “I spit on you, ferengi!”

Reflexively Ross reared the stallion back, taking him out of reach of the whip. Undeterred, Dil Assa drove his mount forward and tried again, striking wildly in his fury.

The results were explosive. Usually Ross glided through life as a calm, detached observer, but proximity to Juliet had dangerously strained his control, and as the Turkoman’s whip snapped viciously across his back and shoulder, rage shattered the remnants of his restraint.

When Dil Assa lashed out again, Ross reached out with cat quickness and grabbed the thong with his left hand. Ignoring the searing pain, he yanked back with all his strength, jerking the whip from his opponent’s hand. “If you want to lose, Turkoman, so be it!” He hurled the whip to the ground. “Now I play to win!”

He wheeled Rabat sharply and set off in pursuit of the main body of players, which had passed by while Ross and Dil Assa were engaged in their private combat. There had been another breakaway where one man carried the goat halfway to the goal before being overtaken. Now all of the players were involved in a wild general melee.

The stallion trumpeted with joy at being given his head and charged over the barren plain like an avenging angel. Knowing that the
boz
would be in the center of the crowd of riders, Ross drove straight for it, intending to force his way straight in.

Then he realized that Rabat was gathering himself for a leap. In an instant of perfect communication between man and mount, Ross sensed that the stallion wanted to hurdle right on top of the brawling, seething mass of riders and horses.

It was madness, yet Ross didn’t hesitate for an instant. In
bozkashi,
anything was allowed.
Anything.
His mind at one with his horse, Ross felt Rabat’s sweeping strides and bunching muscles, the fierce equine aggression, as if they were his own. Together they rose into the air and for a moment soared like Pegasus.

Then man and beast smashed down on top of the roiling, cursing throng. It was pure chaos. Kicks, fists, and whip lashes rained down on Ross and the stallion, but the sheer weight of their descent forced a space to open beneath them, right next to where the goat was being fought over.

Oblivious to the buffeting of other riders, Ross clamped the whip between his teeth, then dived through the choking dust toward the
boz,
stretching perilously over empty air with only a boot heel and his grip on the saddle horn to anchor him to his mount. At the farthest limit of his reach, he managed to seize a back leg of the mangled carcass. The man who had possession fought viciously to retain it, but he lacked his assailant’s fierce, fresh strength, and after a few seconds, Ross wrenched the prize away.

When the full weight of the carcass lurched into his grasp, Ross almost crashed down to the stony soil. It took all his strength to regain his seat, but he managed to do it without losing the goat to the clawing hands of other players.

Ross draped the battered
boz
in front of his saddle, then began the slow, violent process of fighting his way out of the melee. In his state of exhilarated fury, he felt none of the blows that fell on him, and he had no compunction about striking back in kind. Every hand and whip was raised against them, but he and Rabat were unstoppable as they barreled through the mob, knocking the other riders aside.