The Horse Road (24 page)

I fell to my knees, sobbing, scrabbling at the tunnel. I was a badger when the hounds have sniffed it out, and have entered its lair.

‘Failak!' I cried as I neared the entrance, the far-off gleam of shining daylight. It was only then that I realised the cave mouth was no longer the ragged oval that it had been when I entered it. Now only a sickle of light marked where I could escape. I dragged myself towards it on my elbows, the lamp spilling more oil down the sleeve of my old linen tunic. A flat stone had been shifted against the entrance, and was obscuring the light.

‘Failak!' I cried again, and his face appeared in the slender gap, the sun shining in the fine hairs of his dark fur hat and in the gold inlay of one front tooth.

‘No,' he said smoothly. ‘Alas, no harness. I fear your mare must meet her fate. And you, Kallisto, need be in no hurry now to reach Ershi again. And it has come to my memory what a rich man your father is, a very rich man with a large city house filled with foreign treasures, with a farm in the valley where Persian horses run in the pastures. All year long, the camels and donkeys and ox wagons haul the trade goods into Ershi, goods from Arabia and India and the islands of the Mediterranean, from Greece, from the cold Baltic lands to the north, from the forests of the Caucasus, and the pastures around the mighty Don River. Such a man as your father, I think, has one thing that he treasures above all this and that no trading deal could bring to his door. Am I right?'

He stared at me, his eyes as intent and hungry as they had been on the previous evening when he
looked at me across his plate of meat and rice. I was silent with shock.

‘Yes, I am right,' he said. ‘Above all the treasures in his warehouses and ledgers, your father prizes his only daughter. And if he wishes to see her again, he must pay. He must send me a great sum of wealth! He must atone for the swindle he pulled on me, cheating me when I traded with him, sending me less than the full weight of goods we had agreed upon!'

‘My f-father does not cheat!' I had hoped to sound brave, even outraged, but my voice shot out in a high squeak. Failak's lips curled contemptuously.

‘What do you know of trade?' he sneered. ‘You run around playing at games, a spoiled child whining about the life of one mare. I will have a valley full of mares; your father shall send them in exchange for your life! He shall send camels here, laden with drinking horns of gold, with bales of brocade, with Arabian incense!'

He leaned down until his face was inches away from mine, silhouetted against the slice of light. ‘You will stay here until your father pays your ransom,' he said. ‘My men have already placed food and water, and extra oil, to the left of the main chamber. No harm shall befall you until the full ransom is paid.'

Then he was gone, before I could even protest, and after a pause the stone shifted with a grating roar, and I heard the voices of other men, Failak's servants who must have been hidden and waiting amongst
the barrows before I even rode up the mountain towards the morning sun.

Then there was silence. No wind. No bird cry. No snort of horse, no voice. I lay in the tunnel, and felt the cold dirt beneath my cheek, while the lamp burned lower and the ghostly nomads crept towards me, their daggers drawn in their calloused fists and their tall, dry horses shining in the gloom like mirages in the desert.

I lay there while the sun's chariot rolled over the mountains, while Failak returned to his house and called for wine, while Batu hunted wild sheep with the warlord's men. I lay there while the army of the Middle Kingdom rolled their siege engines closer to Ershi's walls, while brave horses fell in cavalry attacks, while my mother fought for her life.

But I did not fight for mine. Not now. If my father returned home one day, and the war ended, and the ransom note was delivered to him and the terms fulfilled, still it wouldn't matter. None of it would matter because Swan would be dead. I had failed to save her, and she was trapped in Ershi still, grinding her grain with her teeth, slowly, peacefully, in the last days left to her.

I lay there on the cold floor, breathing the mouldy thickness, while the sun set in the west, and my lamp's flame sank into its puddle of oil and began to smoke. At last, I roused myself and dragged myself back into the main tomb, and found the jars of water
and the extra oil that Failak's men had placed there, perhaps last night while I lay in a guestroom beneath the watchtower, tossing between the fine soft sheets.

Using a leather cup, I took water from a jar and drank it; it tasted as musty and cold as the air felt around me. For the first time, I noticed the funeral chariot standing behind the bones of the horses on its high wheels; its wooden sides were carved with flying swans. In my mother's tribe too, swans were a bird that could connect your spirit to heaven. I stared at the funeral chariot for a long time. Perhaps, if I died here in this place of despair, a white bird would come for me and lift me on its wide wings into the shining air. And perhaps the priestess lying in the coffin would forgive me for having disturbed her rest; perhaps she would understand that I had done this terrible thing for love of a white mare, a mare with wings on her feet.

Failak had said the tombs had belonged to the Scythians, a race lost and scattered now across the mountains and plains of the world. My father had a book scroll, written in ancient times by a man called Herodotus who had travelled through our lands. He had written about the Scythians, I remembered; and I had read his
Histories
aloud to my family as we sat on the rooftop in the oppressive heat of a summer evening, a lightning storm flickering over the foothills. There was one phrase of Herodotus' that my mother and I had liked very much. I repeated it now,
softly, into the tomb's stillness, for it was a line about the Scythians: ‘
Their country is the back of a horse.
'

The words seemed to hang in the air; I felt the ghosts listening. I repeated the phrase more loudly, and my voice echoed back off the stones as though a ghostly chorus was speaking to me. I went rigid with fright, and remained too frightened to make another sound; I tiptoed to the wall of the tomb, as far as I could get from the coffin and the chariot, and slouched against the wall with the stones pressing their roughness into my back. I tried not to think about how far away my father was, or to wonder if my mother was still alive, or to try and guess where Batu had gone. He had been right, I acknowledged now, and I should not have come here. I let my anger at him slip away.

Even though by now it must have been dark with the moon climbing the sky, I was too afraid to close my eyes. Every time my lids began to drift shut, things moved stealthily in the corner of my vision and my ribs clenched around my heart. I pinched the back of my hand, hard, and straightened my spine against the stones. Staring into the shadows, I dared the ghosts to step into plain view before they seized my spirit. But perhaps I would die before that happened; I would die here alone, and no ransom could ever bring me back.

Time stood still. Gradually the water in the jar sank lower. Occasionally I ate a handful of dried apricots or some walnuts but I had no appetite. My grief for Swan curdled my stomach, and slowed my heartbeat. Occasionally I refilled the oil in my lamp; its flames rose and fell, illuminating all that there was to see: the funeral chariot, the coffin, the horses' bones. I removed the golden torc that Berta had given me, and laid it on the altar as a gift, and begged the dead warrior priestess to wear it in her afterlife and to forgive me. Sometimes I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped that when I opened them again I would find I had been trapped in a dark dream and that around me I would see my own familiar room in our house in Ershi. But this never happened.

My mind plodded along, dull and slow, or roused itself into fits of fear and panic, scrabbling inside my
skull like a marmot in a snare. When this happened, I would tell myself stories to calm my mind. I told myself about Bucephalus, the great Persian horse that had belonged to Alexander the Great, a conqueror who had ridden through our lands centuries ago. He and Bucephalus had campaigned and fought together through mountains and deserts, through howling blizzards and scorching summers, companions in conquest in many foreign lands. Alexander had a coin minted bearing the head of his horse, his forelock standing straight up and his mane hogged off short. My father had one of these ancient pieces in a chest at home. When Bucephalus had died at the great age of thirty, the grieving Alexander named a city in his honour.

But thinking about Bucephalus's death only made me cry for Swan.

So then I told myself the nomad tale about the winged horses that used to drink at an oasis pool, but were spied upon by a cunning king. One night he poured wine into the water, and the horses drank it and became giddy and weak. Thus the king's men were able to clip the horses' wings so they could no longer fly in the air, but instead had to fly over the land on their fleet feet, and serve mankind.

But thinking about this story only made me think about Swan too, a mare with wings on her heels when we ran together in the summer pastures.

And so, I tried to close my mind to stories, and I was dozing when the ground began to shake. The first
vibration was so faint that I thought I had imagined it; it was like a tingle in my bones. I opened my eyes, and held myself very still. Perhaps now the ghosts were coming at last to rend my spirit from my aching body. The second vibration was stronger, running through the cold ground as though the horses in my stories had come alive and were galloping to me, shaking the earth with their pounding hooves. I sprang to my feet. Now the ground shifted beneath the soles of my boots, harder, faster. I whirled around, holding the lamp high. A cry of terror broke from my lips.

A dull murmur rose through the rocks and soil, and became a grinding roar: the mountain was speaking. Soil trickled between stones, and dust thickened the stale air. I pressed my sleeve across my mouth and struggled to remain standing as the tomb trembled. Now the floor shook like a rug hanging to dry in a strong wind. Roaring filled my head, dust blinded me. The ground pitched beneath me, and cracks zigzagged across the floor. Walls tilted and swayed.

Earthquake!

The mountain spirits were angry, fierce, shaking the world like a dog shaking its prey in its teeth.

I lurched as the ground rose under my feet, and pitched forward. My lamp flew from my hand and plunged me into momentary darkness. Then a burning thread of oil mingled its smoke with the swirling dust. I coughed and choked, dragging off my robe to throw over it and extinguish the flames.

All around me in the pitch darkness, I felt walls and roof beams, and the mountain itself, sliding and buckling and heaving. The mountain was a horse now, a bucking, twisting horse being ridden by the mountain spirits in their rage. I staggered in the dark, blind and terrified. A rock rolled across one foot. Something struck my head a glancing blow across the temple, and stars with ragged tails soared across my vision.

Slowly, the ground became still and the loud roar subsided into a growl. Crawling on my hands and knees, I felt around for my fallen lamp, and then took it to the oil jars. Spilled oil coated my palms, and I felt the rough shape of one of the jars, cracked open and rolling on its side. The other jar was still upright and I used its contents to fill my lamp. Then I pulled the flint from inside my boot, and struck a flame.

On one side of the tomb, the roof beams of round tree trunks were smashed into pale splinters, and had fallen across the altar and the coffin. My glance skittered away from the dusky bundle that lay inside, wrapped in crumbling felts and reed mats. Swinging around, I saw that the tunnel through which I had entered the tomb was blocked with fallen stones, and that I would never be able to crawl through it again even if my father came with a whole caravan of camels to pay my ransom. I stood up slowly and shuffled across piles of dirt and stone to the chamber's far side, where the wall had collapsed and the beams had
fallen inwards. I stared at it for a long time, and felt a whisper of hope rise in me.

Fetching the antler bone, with its dull tips and its patina of age, I began to gouge at the tomb wall. Stones fell inwards, crushing my toes. Dirt showered into my hair and eyes; I felt it rolling down inside my tunic, gritty against my skin. I jabbed the antlers into the wall over and over, and scooped dirt out with my fingers. It felt as though I worked for hours, lying on my belly, sweat running down my sides, my fingernails breaking and tearing, my tongue pressed against my teeth as I struggled through the wall and the soil that the earthquake had loosened. From time to time, I stopped to rest. Once the ground vibrated again, and I flattened myself into the dirt fearfully, but then the tingle subsided. I continued digging and scooping, pulling the loosened rock and soil towards me and then pushing it downwards between my legs. My boot toes scrabbled for purchase as I climbed slowly up through the roof of the tomb. I strained up and up, like the pale shoot of some buried flower, trying to reach sunlight.

And then, there was the light, a thread of brightness. A blue woollen skein of morning sky. A patch of carpet woven with cloud patterns. A bird, flying southwards over the Pamirs. I pushed my hand out into that daylight and let it lick my dirty skin, my torn, cut, bleeding fingers. I opened my mouth wide and tasted the air filled with wind and flowering
grasses and warm mountainside and the resinous oil of juniper. Weak tears of gratitude ran down my face. Someone's prayers had reached the ears of the mountain spirits; perhaps Berta had prayed for me, seated by the hearth fire of her yurt; or perhaps my mother, lying queenly and proud in her high Greek bed; or perhaps Batu had implored aid for me. Or maybe, even, the dead warrior, lying in her coffin surrounded by her wonderful fleet-footed horses, had accepted my gift of a golden torc, and had roused the spirits to set me free. The mountain had released me from its belly's dark embrace.