White Mare's Daughter (40 page)

Therefore he had brought his little herd of mares, risking the
mockery of the tribe for being a man and a prince and yet stooping to sit on
the back of a lowly female. But a gelding was worse than useless for luring a
stallion into a trap.

This stallion found the man-scent on the mare despite Agni’s
best efforts to remove it: he snorted and shook his head. But he did not turn
and bolt. It was more as if he had seldom or never scented such a thing, than
as if he knew and feared it.

So, thought Agni. That much was true. No tribe wandered or
hunted in this country. He had found none, nor evidence of any; but they might
simply be elusive. This was Horse Goddess’ land in truth, and these her
children, these tall beautiful horses who had no fear of man.

And if that was so, then his dream of Rudira might signify
the goddess, and the death that he had seen might be his own, for violating the
sanctity of her country.

No. He would not think that. He had been brought here to
find this one, this red stallion with the young moon on his brow.

While Agni maundered, the stallion courted the mare. He was
not headlong as some stallions were. He asked, and was polite; and if she
flattened an ear or lifted a heel, he withdrew. He had sense, then, and a wise
heart.

Just as she began to soften to his advances, lifting her
tail and indicating that, if he asked properly, she might invite him, Agni
launched himself out of the grass onto her back.

The stallion shied. The mare wheeled under Agni’s heel and
hand, but not before she paused to stale full in the stallion’s startled face.

Wise mare, wicked mare, blessed mare. The stallion was
deeply taken aback by the creature that smelled of mare and had attached itself
to the mare’s back, but she was in full season, and he was rampant for her.

She was nothing averse to lifting that wicked tail of hers
and bolting toward the haven of her herdmates. She had a fair turn of speed;
not enough to outrun the chestnut, but enough to keep him preoccupied with
keeping pace. The other stallions, startled or interested, trailed behind, but
none came close enough to be a nuisance.

Horse Goddess was with Agni. By her good offices and the
mare’s own irresistible scent, Agni on the mare led the stallion straight into
the trap that he had made. He leaped from her back as he passed the gate,
rolling, springing to his feet, setting shoulder to the gate and heaving it
shut on its lashings of strong leather. He dropped the bar into place just as
the herd of young stallions came thundering up to the gate; but they veered
away, nor did a heavy body crash into it.

The spotted mare stood heaving for breath some distance
inside the gate. The stallion mounted her—O marvelous; he was barely winded—and
bred her where she stood.

She offered no resistance. If anything, Agni thought, she
was amused. Such a chase she had led him, and now he strutted, beautifully
certain that he had had the better of her.

He was even more delighted to discover the dun mares. They
were less haughty than the spotted mare, but less ready, too. He courted each,
but did not mount either; he marked them, that was all, nibbled a nape, licked
a shoulder, made their acquaintance as a well-bred stallion might. They liked
him well enough, though they drove him off after a while, weary of his
importunings.

Then at last he discovered his captivity. He was not greatly
inclined to leave this place with its treasure of stallionless mares, but
neither did he intend to stay in it for longer than it pleased him. He trotted
back the way that he had come, and stopped in confusion. Agni, perched atop the
wall, went utterly still.

The stallion explored the gate with nose and forefoot,
prodding at it, starting when it shifted slightly, but it never gave way. He
moved along the wall then. It was solid from cliff-face to cliff-face. Agni had
made very sure of that.

One of the mares called to the others. His head snapped
about. Mares, he would be thinking. Grass, and water. Contentment.

He knew no madness of confinement. Not yet. The mares would
distract him for a while. Long enough, Agni hoped, to get his attention; then
to begin his taming.

But for this day Agni would be a hunter and not a horse-tamer.
He would take refuge in stillness. He would do nothing to disturb the stallion.

The others of the stallion’s herd had lingered for a while,
pacing the wall, drinking deep of the scent of mares; but after a while they
wandered away. None of them tried to break down or to leap the wall. Such
urgency was not in them.

For the stallion trapped within, that time would come. Agni
shaped a prayer to Horse Goddess, that the madness be brief and soon over.

oOo

When the stallion had settled somewhat, snatching grass
uneasily just out of reach of the mares, Agni slid softly from the wall. The
stallion started erect. Agni stood still. The stallion’s nostrils flared; he
snorted. Very, very slowly Agni moved away from the wall.

That was a bold son of the goddess. He watched with every
sense alert, eyes rolling white, but he did not shy or bolt.

Agni sought the camp that he had made, moving as a hunter
will, softly, softly. There was water close by, and provisions enough till he
could go out to hunt. He could watch and be unseen, but senses as keen as a
horse’s would be aware of him, would grow accustomed to him, would begin not to
fear him.

He was not particularly quiet in his camp. He moved about as
he pleased. At dusk he built a fire, singing as he did it, any song that came
into his head. He would make himself a part of this world, his sounds and
movements as much of it as the birds in the remains of the trees, or the
rabbits in the grass.

He was aware nightlong, even in his sleep, of the horses
moving about, the deeper snort that was the stallion, a squeal as he ventured
too close to one of the mares. He dreamed of horses, just as he should have
done. Horses running. Horses at play, stallion-play that was like war.

oOo

At dawn he started awake. For a moment he knew it had all
been a dream, the red stallion as much as the horses running over fields of
mist and shadow. But when he raised himself, he saw them standing in the gloom:
the three short stocky mares, and the taller, lighter, finer-headed stallion
with his red coat gleaming faintly. He grazed a little apart from them, but
restlessly, more so than he had done before.

By full morning the pacing had begun, stride and stride and
stride along the wall, calling to his kin who were now far from here. Every now
and then he would halt, gather himself, half-rear as if to leap the wall. But
Agni had built it high and strong, and the stallion was at heart a sensible
creature. He did not venture his life to climb over the barrier.

The mares distracted him somewhat. He bred the spotted mare
again, a handful of times as the day wore on; and one of the dun mares
importuned him, so that he could not in courtesy refuse her. Agni, sitting in
his camp, reflected rather wryly that even if he failed to win this stallion,
his mares would bring home much more than a memory of him.

The stallion was not won yet. Not by far. To capture
him—that was simple enough. But Agni must ride him back to the tribe.

It was already full summer. By the autumn dancing he must
return—and it was many days’ journey from this country to the tribe’s autumn
lands.

He schooled himself to patience. Haste had never been wise
in training horses. Some said nonetheless that it was best to seize the captive,
pull him down, break his will; then ride him into submission. But Agni had too
much of the Mare’s blood in him. He trusted in a gentler way.

Gentler, but also slower. And the day wore away, and the
night after that, with Agni in his camp and the stallion shifting from mares to
wall and back again.

The next day Agni moved his camp closer to the horses.
Himself he moved even closer, little by little, till he sat close enough to
touch the spotted mare. She did not object. No more did the sisters, but the stallion
moved off mistrustfully, eyeing the strange creature askance.

Agni was careful not to move suddenly or leap erect. As if
this had been a foal come new to the world of men, he made himself small.
Small, to a horse as to a man, offered no threat.

The mares were his willing accomplices in the taming of the
stallion. They had no fear of Agni, nor any dislike, either. Nor did they find
this confinement unduly onerous. There was grass enough, and no long wearying
traveling.

He bridled and mounted the spotted mare and rode her about.
The stallion took exception to that. He lunged at the mare, as if to mount and
breed her.

She however was coming out of season and in no indulgent
mood. She let fly with her heels. Agni clung to her mane and rode through the
flurry, which though brief was fierce enough.

The stallion, chastened, withdrew. Agni rode her in a circle
round the stallion, who tucked his tail and flattened his ears but offered no
insolence. Agni halted the mare and slid from her back.

The stallion was perhaps twice his arm’s reach away. He made
that a pace shorter. The stallion eyed him and clearly considered flight, but
was too curious, or too cowed by the mare’s temper, to venture it.

Agni stopped. He would not press his advantage. Not yet. He
retreated with care, returned to his camp, left the stallion to ponder what he
had seen.

And perhaps he did, at that. He did not have the look of a
dull-witted beast.

By degrees and by caution Agni accustomed the stallion to
his presence. He could not come close enough to touch, but he could sit a bare
hand’s breadth out of reach while the stallion grazed, or sit on the wall while
the stallion paced and yearned, and meet no resistance, find no fear.

A stallion from a herd that knew men, that had been hunted and
culled for time out of mind, would have been notably more difficult to subdue
than this innocent. Nevertheless he was no docile creature. He had great pride,
and no submission in him to anything that was not a mare.

Agni must subdue that pride and win that submission. For
that he built a smaller enclosure within the valley, with the remains of the
grove for walls.

The horses watched in great interest, even the stallion. At
first he shied off from the opening of the pen, too wise now to be so gulled,
but when the gate did not shut and the mares came and went freely in quest of
the sweeter grass within, he ventured it himself.

On the day when Agni could sit within the enclosure, nearly
under the stallion’s feet, and rise and not cause him to shy off, he secured
the gate at last. The stallion, hearing the sound of it, leaped to the alert. A
man betrayed by his own son, a child betrayed by its father, could not have
been as angry as this stallion was, to have been caught again, and so easily,
too.

He raged. He roared round the enclosure. He flung himself at
the walls. He battered them with his hooves.

They groaned, but they held. Agni had set the posts deep and
woven the walls tightly; and a good half of the supports were living trees,
rooted in the earth. The gate, which was weakest, Agni himself guarded, driving
the horse back with the snap of a rope-end.

He waited out the stallion’s rage with patience that he had
learned long ago in breaking colts. It seemed to last a very long time, but by
the sun it was not so long: from midmorning till noon. Then at last, in the
heat of the day, the stallion stopped. His sides were heaving. His neck was
flecked with foam. Leaves and bits of torn grass and clawed-up earth were
tangled in his tail. Even as exhausted as he was, he would not lower his head.
He would not submit.

Agni slipped over the wall into the pen. The stallion
rounded on him. The flick of rope in his hand sent the horse shying back, but
he returned with daunting quickness, teeth bared, half-rearing. Agni drove him
back again with rope-end and swift movement and a stamp of the foot, never
touching him or offering him pain.

He made to whirl and kick. Agni shifted his body, flicked
the rope-end, brought the horse about to face him again.

That was the game, and that was its rule: that the horse
face him, focus on him, be attentive to the shifts of his body and the flicks
of the rope. Kicking, lunging, biting, yielded nothing.

At last the stallion stood still. His head hung low. But,
Agni thought, he was not quite spent. He was cunning in his way, and he learned
swiftly. Agni moved toward him with care, rope-end at the ready, and did the
thing that he had been looking to do: laid a hand on the sweat-streaming neck.

The stallion reared, wheeled, lashed out with his hind feet.

But Agni was not there. Agni was well out of reach—and the
stallion found himself caught with a rope about his neck, tightening as he
flung himself backward. Agni wound it swiftly round the stout sapling that he
had left near the middle of the circle, secured it, and stood back.

A horse could kill himself, could break his neck, fighting
such confinement. But Agni had trusted in this one’s good sense, and in the
game that they had played—and, yes, in the complaisance of exhaustion, though
that was not perhaps as strong as it might have been.

As he had hoped, the stallion did not fight long. He learned
soon that if he ceased to pull back, if he moved forward, the tightness round
his throat eased. Then he tried another thing, a lunge and twist, to free
himself; but Agni was there, and by the gods’ grace the rope held.

The stallion stood still. His eyes were fixed on Agni. Agni
could not see hate in them, which rather surprised him. Wariness, yes. Anger.
But something—respect? interest? Something else that almost made him smile.

By careful degrees he worked his way along the rope, keeping
it firm but not tight, till again he could touch the stallion’s neck. The
stallion flinched a little, but did not recoil.