The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn) (43 page)

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Authors: Morgan Llywelyn

BOOK: The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn)
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“Blood is life, Kazhak. Life is always welcome in my wagon.”
T
he anger and resentment were still in her, just beneath the surface, festering like a wood tick under the skin. But they were hurting Epona beyond bearing by denying her the pleasure of his embrace and the warmth of his body, plus the bond between them that existed nowhere else. Her skin cried aloud for that warmth; her spirit thirsted for that bond. When Kazhak’s voice came rumbling up from deep in his chest, and his eyes sought and held hers as if nothing else on earth was worth looking at, she could not refuse him. The embrace of anger was a poor substitute for Kazhak’s arms.
I am not your wife. I have not been made one of your tribe. I have no real place in the world
. She said the words in her head, the bitter words, but they did not reach her lips. They were too bitter; they would ruin the taste of this moment, when the magic of new life was strong in both of them and the tender memory of the little filly drew them together in a sort of worship. Worship for the great fire; that was the important thing.
And this was the way to celebrate it.
Epona closed her eyes and willingly lost herself in Kazhak’s strong arms.
He felt a residue of stiffness in her spine, but he hugged her until even that melted away. He would not be stopped, not tonight. He had seen the irresistible beauty in her face as she cuddled the newborn horse against her own body.
He unfastened the Kelti brooch holding Epona’s bearskin robe, and his fingers were unusually clumsy freeing the pin from the catch. Such complicated fasteners were not used on the Sea of Grass. The style of the pin, unique to the Kelti, had always seemed to Kazhak to be yet another example of the way those people made simple things complex.
Yet there was no denying, the brooches fastened and held cloth better than any other device the Scythian had ever encountered.
The bearskin cloak lay at Epona’s feet, and Kazhak gently pressed her down upon it. It was dark in the wagon, but he could see her face so clearly in his mind that he was not aware of the darkness. He moved his hands down her body and every part of that was familiar to him, too, yet always new and exciting. He fitted her hips against his, letting her feel the male hunger awaiting her, and was gratified by the way her breathing quickened and she pressed eagerly against him.
Epona had never assumed the Scythian style of passivity with a man. There would have been no enjoyment for her in such a lack of participation. It was enthusiasm, and the mutual giving and taking of pleasure, that made bedsports so delicious. Once committed, she held nothing back, guiding Kazhak with her hands and her words, touching him … here, there, all the sensitive places she had learned … until he moaned with pleasure, and reciprocated gladly, taking her with him into that otherworld only the two of them had ever shared
Later, as they lay together in the darkness, their breathing matched to one rhythm like a good team of wagon horses,
Kazhak thought to himself,
This woman is more wife to me than any of those other women in my wagons.
Yet he could never say such words aloud to Epona. It would be unthinkable.
Many things that had previously seemed unthinkable worked their way to the surface of the Scythian’s mind when he was near Epona. He realized she was furious because their relationship had not made her Scyth; yet when he was with her, Kazhak was not aware of himself as a Scythian, either. He and she together were something new, almost like a new tribe. Though they appeared to have little in common, Kazhak could see that their differences were the result of things beyond themselves and outside their control, indifferent forces that did not take individual beings into account. Customs, beliefs, attitudes—these were the external pressures that shaped them, but he and Epona contained something else that refused to be so shaped.
The essence Epona called the spirit within seemed to be the same in both of them. When their eyes met, they understood each other without words. When he was inside her body, it was as if they had only one body between them.
Kazhak lay beside Epona and thought about these things as he had never forced himself to think before. It was difficult to contemplate such abstractions—Kelti thinking—but practice made it easier, and it gave him access to a new freedom inside his own head.
Freedom. That concept meant so much to Epona; yet until she challenged his thinking Kazhak had never considered himself to be lacking in freedom. He rode the horse, which gave him unlimited mobility. He had all the gold he wanted, the gift of Kolaxais—as long as it pleased Kolaxais to let him keep it. But after listening to Epona and remembering the way of life he had observed in her village, he realized his horizons had limits he had never acknowledged.
The horse he rode, the herds he used for food and raw materials; these belonged, in the final accounting, to Kolaxais. Kazhak could live as he pleased—as long as it pleased the
han.
His freedom did not belong to him; it was only allowed
him at the prince’s pleasure: the prince who was not a chosen representative of his people but who ruled them by divine right as a kinsman of Tabiti, and who could threaten them with ostracism or execution if they displeased him.
And now Kolaxais himself was owned by the shamans, who threatened him—and his tribe—with demons if they refused to submit. To whom did the shamans belong? Were they in turn captives of the same fear they used to intimidate the nomads?
Epona’s race did not appear overly fearful of the spirits. They respected them, interacting with them in much the same way one Scythian tribe interacted with another, for mutual benefit. But the Kelti were not enslaved by demons.
They belonged to themselves, the Kelti. Only to themselves, and to the spark of life each cherished within. That was what Epona said. Kazhak lay sleepless, thinking these troubling thoughts long after Epona’s breath had slowed into sleep beside him.
Epona awakened as the stars were dissolving in the first milky light of dawn. To her surprise she found Kazhak still beside her, fast asleep now, one heavy arm thrown across her body.
Trying not to disturb him, she slipped from beneath it and went out into the morning to tend the fire and prepare a small and private sacrifice to the spirits. She was not the Scythian’s wife, but she would bear his child if the great fire was willing to send her a spark to nourish within her body.
She crouched alone over the tiny ceremonial blaze, her soft voice chanting the ancient invocations of her people.
Foaling season was soon upon them in earnest, and there were sleepless nights when Epona was summoned again and again to lend her strength, her energy, her … magic … to the mares bringing new life into the world. Usually the horses gave birth without difficulty, but when they did not, Epona sometimes felt there was difficulty even before one of the men with the herd came for her. She would grow uneasy, even physically uncomfortable, and eventually emerge from her wagon, looking for Kazhak. “Is everything all right?” she
would ask, and he would tell her. A dun mare, really too young to be bred, was down and could not get up. A black horse colt had been born to one of Aksinya’s mares but had not started breathing. One of the oldest mares had wandered away from the herd and they were certain she was in labor but could not find her …
“Can you feel her, Epona? Can you lead us to her?”
She found the mare. She made preparations from weeds and herbs according to half-remembered recipes from her own childhood, and applied them to horses with legs swollen by snakebite or sprained by falling into holes. She sat without sleep for three nights and three days, massaging the twisted body of a young foal that had suffered some injury while running with its mother, throwing all its limbs into disharmony, and in the fourth dawn she watched with a lump in her throat as the little creature struggled to its feet and stood to nurse, and live.
Spring became summer, the brief, lush beauty of the steppe in one of its rare good moods unfolding like a giant flower. Snowmelt gave way to intensely green moss, and that in its turn was replaced by tiny white flowers called sheeplick, then larger blossoms of sunface and skyblue and nightpurple. The last wild hyacinths surrendered to the silver-green plumes of feathergrass, the ocean foam of the Sea of Grass, billowing above an undertow of sage. For a short time, Tabiti was gentle and merciful. The prairie bloomed and life was filled with promise.
Word of Epona’s gift spread across the steppe like ripples on a pond, and within one long summer nomads were traveling considerable distances to ask her help; a help Kazhak gladly offered, knowing word would get back to Kolaxais and the shamans. Epona asked one thing in return—to be taught how to break and train the young horses for riding.
Kazhak’s immediate reaction was predictable, but she persevered, and at last he grunted an assenting syllable, heavy with reluctance. “Kazhak will show you, a few things only. But if you get hurt, is your own fault, Epona. Kazhak will not take blame.”
He took her out onto the summer-brilliant plain, silvery with drying grass, gilded with boundless sunlight. He taught her how to approach the wary young colts selected for breaking, and was pleased to see that she mastered the art quickly. Soon she could put her hand on a horse’s neck before any of the men could get near it.
The next step was to learn the use of the rope, a long woven strand to be slipped over a horse’s neck and skillfully tossed so that an additional loop encircled his nose, cutting off his wind before he could break away. This was rough work, and men were often dragged or kicked trying to subdue the colts, but Epona never shrank from the task. She was agile and sure of eye; only her light weight kept her from being as effective as the men.
Colts were then snubbed to older, calmer saddle horses, so they might accustom themselves to the sight and proximity of saddle and rider. Kazhak explained the importance of these older horses to Epona by saying, “Is like your
druii
, these old ones. They teach the young, is it so? Show them they have nothing to fear?”
Each step of the training was planned in advance and designed to convince the unbroken animal of man’s supremacy, without destroying the horse’s own spirit. The Scythians had only contempt for docile animals who never showed fight; they spoke of such horses, no matter what their sex, as “she,” a point not lost on Epona. The passivity the nomads demanded from their women they found contemptible in their horses.
A horse who fought, however, who reared and bucked and plunged, was much admired by all men, and the rider who finally won his trust and cooperation gained greatly in stature among the nomads. Aksinya once told Epona that Kazhak’s gray stallion had taken a year to break, and had fought every step of the way. For this reason his blood was especially desired on the steppe, and other herders brought their mares to him, offering Kazhak gold in exchange for his services.
“He is the strongest horse,” Kazhak boasted. “His heart is as big and as hot as Tabiti!”
When a young horse was used to the touch and presence of men, a saddlecloth was placed on his back for the first time and bound around the belly with a goathair girth. The tightening of the girth usually provoked another fight, and when a saddle was added renewed resistance was expected.
It would have been possible to throw the horse to the ground, strap riding gear on him, let a man seat himself on the animal’s back, and then turn them loose to fight it out together; Kazhak told Epona this method of horsebreaking was practiced among some other tribes, but it was not the way of his people. They preferred to go slowly, taking care with each animal so the horse remained willing to learn and could be trusted later.
The first mounting of the saddled gelding or stallion—the Scythians never rode their mares—was an event of prime importance, as it established the permanent relationship between horse and rider. If it went well, a celebration was in order, and the successful trainer of the horse was tossed in the air by his fellows amid much laughter and good-natured roughhousing. But the development of the horse did not end there; it must be continued until the animal was instantly responsive to the signals given him through reins and bridle, through shift of weight and thrust of rider’s leg. Once those obediences were acquired a horse who had shown valor in the earlier breaking process was given additional training to make him a combat animal, a full partner in the team, who would maneuver his rider into battle position and even defend a fallen man with teeth and hooves.
The trained war-horse of the Scythians was a terrifying weapon in his own right.
As the summer waned, the men were quick to notice that Epona’s light weight and intuitive understanding of the horses gave her an advantage they did not possess. The colts she worked with learned faster and seemed more willing. Now she was dividing her time between the flat, now-dusty plain used for training and the pen where the young horse colts were brought for gelding. During the gelding she stayed close to the animal, whispering to it, applying a paste of her own
concoction to its wound to speed the healing process; but anyone looking in her eyes could see that her heart was not in the gelding pen; it was out on the plains with the herd, galloping, mane blowing in the wind.
She had rapidly become indispensable with the horses, and Kazhak again ordered his women to take over her share of female’s work. This time Epona did not object. She gladly gave up any pretense of trying to fit into the world of the women. During the long days, under the endless sky, she often forgot that she was a woman. She was just part of the horses, and the steppe. Only in Kazhak’s arms at night was she reminded of her sex—or when she saw the eyes of Dasadas following her, following her.

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