The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn) (46 page)

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Authors: Morgan Llywelyn

BOOK: The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn)
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“Kazhak reports to Kolaxais,” the Scythian told them through tight lips. “These horses belong to the prince; it is for him to know.”
“We will tell him,” Tsaygas said in a voice greasy with mutton oil. “He trusts us to do the counting, to do the allotting now. He is too old, too tired to be bothered.”
The Scythian did not dismount from his gray stallion. “Kazhak must see for himself,” he said stubbornly.
Tsaygas’ eyes flashed. “Is not possible.
Han
is under protection of good
taltos
white
taltos;
demons might come with you. We have heard, yes, we have heard. Kazhak cannot see Kolaxais.”
The gibbering chant of the shamans became a high, keening wail, causing the horses to flatten their ears against their heads and move their feet nervously. Out of the corner of her eye, Epona saw how the Scythians who had come forward to welcome Kazhak swiftly withdrew, finding business with their own herds and wagons, too frightened to stay.
Kazhak saw it, too. Things were worse than he feared. The shamans had Kolaxais sequestered and were refusing admittance to him. He might even be dead, his heir officially unnamed, and the shamans had so extended their grasp that others were reluctant to challenge them. He would need time to learn the extent to which they had consolidated their power; surely not all his brothers had given in to the threats, the demons, the gibbered prophecies, and the terrors summoned from the hemp fumes.
Suddenly he grinned; the expansive Kazhak-grin that could reveal everything or nothing. “Demons come with Kazhak? No! Kazhak returns with herd and brothers only. Kazhak
brings magic woman, good woman, to heal sick horses.”
The voice of Mitkezh was like a northern wind; cold, with a cutting edge. “Is well known on Sea of Grass that a wolf-demon accompanies Kazhak. We now know it was even with you here, last winter. We have made preparations to protect our people. Kolaxais, in his wisdom; has decreed that Kazhak is no longer his son, for Kazhak once swore on his father’s hearth that he would bring only honor to his prince and enrich his tribe. Kazhak has broken that oath. Kazhak has brought harm. Shamans know how to punish man who makes false oath.”
Kazhak sat on his horse as if stunned. The color had drained from his face. “Kolaxais says … Kazhak is no longer his son? That cannot be. Kazhak is good son, Kolaxais has loaned him much gold, many horses, shared his meat …”
“Kolaxais does not say your name,” Mitkezh told him. “It goes unspoken, like the names of the dead. After the Taylga we will deal with you, white
taltos
good
taltos
will punish the oath-breaker, yes yes …” He fell into the chant, lost in it, spinning and weaving so his horse-tail pendants whirled about him.
Tsaygas took up the thread of his speech, with a warning to Kazhak. “For now, pitch your tent, man without a name. Your animals will be counted for adding to the
han’
s herd. After Taylga, we will read entrails of sacrifice; we will determine your punishment.
“We will prepare great ceremony to protect our people from demon you have brought, man without a name. Only shamans can protect. Go now. Go from sight of Tsaygas. You offend our eyes.”
The shaman turned and strode back to the great tent that had formerly housed the Prince of the Horse. Epona noticed a small boy she recognized as Kolaxais’ own cupbearer holding the entrance flap aside for Tsaygas, and bowing low as he passed.
The expression in Kazhak’s face affected Epona as if an arrow had been driven into her own breast. She tried to offer him some useless word of comfort but he brushed her aside.
He was too tightly wrapped around his pain to be able to open himself to her.
Searching for some distraction, Epona joined the other women in setting up the tents. For once Kazhak did not object to her participation in the work; he was too preoccupied to notice. The Scythian was moving around the encampment, greeting other men, trying to determine the extent to which the shamans had already turned his brothers against him.
Many men avoided him, but a few greeted Kazhak as they always had and welcomed him into their tents. These few gave him hope. They, too, resented the shamans’ blatant seizure of the vast wealth of the
han.
Vladmir, a stocky Scyth doomed to the life of the tents by a broken hip that had never healed properly, expressed the opinion these men held. “Kolaxais always hard, but fair, Kazhak. When man needed help, Kolaxais would give. Shamans give nothing. Just take, then demand more. They make new rules daily, rules they say are necessary. But people do not understand rules; people break them out of ignorance. Then shamans punish. They take what little we have but still want more.”
“They have taken Kolaxais’ tent,” Kazhak said. His dark eyes seemed to have sunk in his head, just in the short time he had been in the winter encampment.
“Is so,” Vladmir affirmed. “Shamans now hold the gold, too.”
Kazhak’s shock was visible. “The gold of Kolaxais? The wealth of the tribe? But gold is blood of Tabiti; it must stay with the
han.
Is symbol of his chiefdom, of our royal descent. If shamans hold gold, who will let us use it when we need?”
“Shamans have set a guard over the gold,” Vladmir said. “The guard is warned: If he falls asleep on duty he will be strangled, then flayed.
“Many men already put to death, Kazhak. Brothers we not see again. Shamans promised some men rewards; some men
were greedy. Accepted. Then, as each family came to winter camp, animals were counted by shamans. If herder did not bring back enough animals to satisfy Tsaygas, Mitkezh, these bought men killed their brothers. Dead man’s possessions were taken by shamans to placate demons. Or so they say.”
“Why did you not resist?” Kazhak wanted to know.
Vladmir held his hands palms up. “Happened little by little. Happened as each man returned, before he could talk to others. Soon fear was in the camp. When new ones came, they felt it. It is like a demon, that fear. It walks between tents, makes people cower inside.”
Like a silver wolf
, Kazhak thought.
“One man must speak out against shamans, call his brothers in a loud voice to stand with him,” Kazhak said.
Vladmir drew back his lips to reveal dark stumps of teeth. He reached for the little brazier burning nearby and threw a handful of hemp seeds onto it, welcoming the smoke that clouded painful thoughts. “You, Kazhak? No. Not enough would listen to you, now. Men are afraid for their lives.
“As shamans control more property, they have more to buy weak men with. Such men forget Kazhak is brother. They listen to words of shamans, then go around camp to talk against Kazhak. Say Kazhak is bad son to the
han;
tell of demon Kazhak brought to Sea of Grass to kill Kolaxais, so Kazhak could take his place.”
“You do not believe that!”
“No. But some do.”
“Is Kolaxais still alive?” Kazhak had to ask, fearing the answer.
“We think so, but no one has seen. When he dies, it is believed shamans will say he chose new
han,
telling only them. New
han
will not be strong prince; will be someone shamans can control.”
“All brothers know Kolaxais said, many times, Kazhak would succeed him as
han.
You have heard, Vladmir.”
“When people are afraid, they forget what they heard,” Vladmir told him. “They will not argue now. They were used to following orders of Kolaxais; now men say is not much
different to follow orders of shamans. Is easier than dying.”
“Do they not want to be free?” Kazhak burst out, and Vladmir stared at him.
“Free of what, Kazhak? Man is always ruled by something, yes?”
Kazhak stumbled from his friend’s tent, fighting off the fumes of the hemp that could weaken a man and take the bone from his back.
He returned to Epona. “Shamans have been very busy,” he told her. She was shocked by his appearance; he had aged seasons in just one day. “They know all about silver wolf now, blame Kazhak. Turn brothers against Kazhak. Even Kolaxais …”
“Hai,” Epona said softly, opening her arms to him as a mother would invite a weary child.
He swayed toward her, but at the last moment he pulled back.
“No no. Kazhak very strong, no problem,” he assured her, forcing his voice to be hearty and confident. “Kazhak will not be driven away again by shamans and demons. Will stay, talk with brothers, win them back. You see. You watch, Epona.”
“What happens if the shamans are too strong? Will you just wait for them to kill you?”
Kazhak knotted his fists and pounded them against his thighs. “No! Kazhak is not ready to go into wooden house. Kazhak is a man of the horse; when there is no way at all to win battle, Kazhak rides away. Lives, to fight again. But this battle is not lost. Kazhak will stay; fight.”
“Why? Why do you have to stay, when you know they mean to destroy you?”
His voice was husky as he answered, “Among my people, father is sacred, is it so? Papaeus? Kazhak let shamans separate son from father. Was big mistake. Kazhak got mad, took brothers, rode away; did not stay to protect father. Kazhak dishonored father. Kolaxais is right to turn his face from me now. Kazhak can get name back only by fighting for Kolaxais, winning his forgiveness. Winning him away from shamans.”
His shoulders slumped beneath the weight of the burden they had assumed and he turned away from Epona. He stumbled out into the night, seeking the gray stallion. He would sleep with his horse.
The power of the spirits
, Epona thought sadly.
It can be a basket brimming with bread and fruit, or it can be a sword to cut a strong man down.
She awoke to find that sword hanging over her own head. Two women she had never seen before were in the tent with her, and a man stood at the door. An armed man, with an Assyrian sword in his hand and a bronze Makedonian helmet, complete with noseguard, on his head. He was obviously well prepared for physical conflict, if it came to that.
In one hand he held Epona’s own knife, slipped from her belongings while she slept. When she saw Goibban’s iron in that hand, a little of the strength went out of her arms.
“Epona of the Kelti,” one of the women said, “we are your attendants.”
“I need no attendants.”
The man spoke. “Shamans say you are magic person, you are to be treated with great respect. Shamans offer you high honor, Kelti woman. Attendants are one mark of that honor.”
She was rigid with suspicion. “Where is Kazhak? Does he know of this?”
“Is not Kazhak’s business,” the Scythian replied.
The women crowded closer to Epona. One held a cup brimming with dark liquid. “Drink,” she urged, but Epona pulled away. In one long stride the man stood next to her, his hand behind her skull, holding her head still as the women forced the cup against her lips and pried open her jaw. She fought them, but the three together were stronger than she and some of the liquid got into her mouth and down her throat. She felt the flesh numbing where it touched.
The woman stood back and watched her, waiting for the drug to take effect.
Mitkezh entered the tent. A glance at Epona’s eyes told him she was fighting the potion, but he was confident of its power. Even a strong shaman could not fight off the effects of Scythian rue. Soon the woman’s spirit would have no strength of its own, and she would answer whatever questions he put to her. He would learn as much as she knew of the magic of her people: the powers, the rituals. From such a wealth of information there might be much that could be added to the shamans’ own usage.
And when she was wrung dry, as a sacrificial cloth was wrung dry of blood, there were other uses for her. Fitting uses for a woman who had foolishly laid claim to power in her own right, and challenged the strength of the shamans.
They were not afraid of her now. Their own grip on the tribe had tightened to such an extent that they did not need to cower before this person who could summon the wind. What was the wind? Not as frightening as the predators who slunk around the camp; not as terrifying as the giant wolf for which Kazhak was responsible.
But the Taylga would drive all these demons away. The Sacrifice of the White Horse, performed as it would be this time, in this season, with new and special power, would give incomparable strength to those who offered it.
Mitkezh smiled, watching Epona slowly lose the fight and become drowsy. “Send for Tsaygas now,” he ordered the guard. “Is time.”
She could hear their voices at a great distance. They called her by name; they asked questions. To her vast surprise she heard her own voice answering them like that of a sleepy child. She tried to close her mouth and bite off the words, but the commands of her spirit did not reach the hinges of her jaw.
The questioning went on and on. She was dimly aware that even in her helplessness they treated her with a certain care, a certain respect. A respect they had never accorded a woman before. That much, she had achieved.
At last they went away. Or perhaps they did not; perhaps it was only this world that went away, and Epona felt herself
sinking downward with familiar swoop and slide into otherworlds.

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