White Mare's Daughter (80 page)

He had meant to spend the night in his tent. But by the time
he remembered that, he was far away from the camp, and it would cost his pride
too much to go back. He went on as he had begun. The gods were guiding him,
maybe. Or Earth Mother, whose country this was; who, for whatever unfathomable
purpose, had chosen to make him king in this place.

It was never wise to try to understand the gods.

Tilia woke when Agni came in. She had been sleeping, but
lightly, uneasy in his absence. And that was a thing that she had never
expected: that when he was not in her bed, she should feel cold and
distressingly alone.

He was not the lover that Kosti was, or even that Beki had
been, who was so ordinary to look at but who was a wonder and a marvel in a
woman’s arms. He was not too ill to the eye, though one could wish for a little
less nose, a little more flesh about the cheeks and jaw. His eyes were no
proper color for a man’s, although they would have looked admirable in a goat.

And for all of that, when he stood in the light of the one
lamp that she had left burning, he was exactly as beautiful as he needed to be.
She watched him through her lashes, feigning sleep, while he paused to bask in
the room’s warmth—for it was in back of the kitchen, and the hearth heated its
small space in wondrous fashion. In summer it would be intolerable. Now, in
winter, it was bliss.

He shed his heavy mantle, and everything beneath it, too. He
was narrower than a man of her people, except in the shoulders; leaner,
rangier, with long ropes of muscle, and legs bowed from a long life on a
horse’s back. His skin was as white as milk, freckled where the sun had touched
it. He did not grow the pelt that men of her people tended to grow; his was
sparse, like a woman’s. But there was nothing female about his body.

She liked to watch him when he did not know she was doing
it. He put aside constraint then, and forgot to hold himself as his people
believed a man should, particularly a man who was a king. Then he looked
younger, less royally sure of himself. She could see the boy he must have been,
awkward and gangling but with a peculiar grace. He put her in mind of one of
his horses, with his long face and his long legs and his loose-jointed gait.

Once he was naked, he stretched and yawned and shook his
hair out of its braid. His hair was wonderful, much brighter than his sister’s,
the color of somewhat tarnished copper. It was thick and straight, like a
horse’s mane, but much softer. He took no great notice of it except to rake it
out of his face. He was frowning at the air, pondering something that troubled
him.

Whatever it was, he put it aside to slip into the bed beside
her. His body was warm, fire-warm. He smelled of wine and smoke and frosty air,
horses and wool and man—not too terribly much of that last. He had taken well
to the cleanliness that the Lady enjoined on her people; a little to Tilia’s
surprise, at first, until she came to know him. He was not a savage by nature.
He was, in fact, quite a civilized creature.

She slipped arms about him. It was gratifying how quickly he
roused to her touch. She took him inside her, rocking slowly, without urgency;
warmth without heat and pleasure without—for the moment—passion.

This was a thing that she had had to teach him. He had only
known the stallion’s way: seize, thrust, have done.

He did not speak of it, but she saw what she could not
mistake. There had been a woman in his tribe—more than one, as how not, but
this one in particular had marked him deep enough to scar. She had ridden him
as Tilia had seen some of the tribesmen ride their horses, too fast and hard
and with too little regard for his spirit. She had had no patience for the
gentler ways of a woman with a man.

Tilia had a great deal of patience, when it suited
her—little as her brother, for one, might have believed it. Agni had found in
himself a talent for restraint. One could, with such an art, prolong one’s
pleasure for most of a night if one were so inclined.

Neither of them was so minded tonight. Her pace quickened
just as he began to thrust deeper, long strokes, slow still but growing
swifter, and strong. Neither had yet said a word.

His breath caught first. Hers followed soon after.

They clung tightly, flesh on sweat-slicked flesh. He was
still inside her. She held him as long as she could, as if she could bind them
into one creature.

But the world could never stand still, or even pause for
long. He slipped out of her and lay beside her, breathing a little quickly even
yet. She kissed him wherever she could reach.

He laughed at that, with a touch of breathlessness. “Will
you eat me alive?” he asked her.

“Every bite,” she said. He had spoken in her language. She
spoke in his. It was a game they played, to sharpen their wits. She was better
at it than he was.

He never stopped trying to best her. She rather liked that.
It was good for a man to try to match a woman. Not that he ever could, but the
trying helped strengthen his spirit.

He lay a little apart from her but still in her arms as she
was in his, the better to see her face. She traced with a finger the line of
his cheekbone, the sharp clean line of his jaw. His beard was soft, a young
man’s beard. He kept it clipped close, as if he reckoned it somewhat of a
nuisance; though he would have been greatly angry if she had said such a thing.

These horsemen were inordinately proud of the things they
had that no woman did. Beards. No breasts. And the great thrusting thing that
was a man’s most useful possession—of that, they made an enormous fuss. As if a
woman lacked something because her parts were tucked safely away, and as if it
were an advantage to have it all hanging in front of them, dangling and bulging
and getting in the way.

He was, for a man, a lovely creature. She said as much. He
growled, but he had learned not to grow angry when she reminded him of his
proper place in the world. He liked to dream that she would submit to him, or
at least allow him to impose his will on her. Sometimes it was amusing to
indulge him. Other times, as now, she chose the truth instead.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I wonder why you trouble with men at
all. You could keep them in villages of their own, and go there in season, and
get daughters from them and leave the sons, and never be vexed by them else.”

She traced the Lady’s symbols on his breast, circle and
spiral and narrow oval and, for him if he only knew, the shape that meant man.
She laid her hand on that, where she had drawn it over his heart, and said,
“What a marvelous idea, to set the men apart. Is that what your people do?
Especially the young men? Like the horses? We live all tangled together here.
It’s untidy, but it does seem to suit us.”

“You’ll never be in awe of me, will you?”

She raised herself on her arms. His eyes widened. He was
always a little taken aback by her beauty. She swooped to steal a kiss, and
hovered over him, smiling with great contentment. “No man will ever awe me.
Even you. But if any could come close . . .”

“You’re just saying that.”

“What, sulking?” She teased him with her breasts, brushing
them across his chest, slipping away when he tried to catch her. “Beautiful
man,” she said.

He leaped, taking her by surprise, and overset her. She
laughed. These men were ridiculously proud of their strength; as if the force
of a man’s arm were all he needed in the world. She yielded like water, made herself
all soft, gave him nothing to fight against; so that when they had tumbled to a
halt, she was as she had been before, and he was flat on his back, winded,
glowering at her.

“Admit it,” she said. “You’ll never overcome me. But you
might—indeed you might—learn to stand beside me.”

“Or behind you?”

“Not you,” she said.

“A man should stand above a woman.”

She had argued that with him before. He wanted to argue it
again, but she had no intention of letting him. She diverted him instead. She
settled herself comfortably beside him. She let him hold her, which he loved to
do. She said, “Tell me what’s troubling you.”

He sputtered a little, but this was not the first time she
had caught him sidewise. He answered her sensibly enough, considering. “How do
you know something’s troubling me?”

“I know you,” she said.

“You know too much.” He was growling. She waited him out. At
length he said, “All right then. It’s the tribes—the westerners mainly. They
want to go home.”

“Yes,” she said.

“You knew?”

She shrugged. “One could see. They’ve been leaving in ones
and twos and threes. The winter stopped them, but one finds them in the fields
to the eastward, yearning unmistakably. Are you surprised?”

“No,” he said. “Of course not. I was expecting this. It’s
only . . . I was hoping it would take a while longer.”

“Patience doesn’t appear to be a great virtue in the
tribes.”

“Usually we can wait till spring,” Agni said a little dryly.

“You think they’ll all go back?”

“No,” he said. “I think that some will go, and they’ll find
the aftermath of a hard winter, and everyone will see how fat and rich they
are, and by full summer the tribes will be overrunning this country again.”

“You won’t stop them,” she said. It was not a question.

“I don’t think I can.” She lifted her head from his breast.
He was staring into the dark beyond the lamp’s glow. “It’s not going to stop
now. It’s going to go on and on. There’s been no escaping it since that
traveler brought his mare to Larchwood, then went back to the steppe with his
copper knife and his stories.”

“You followed the stories,” she said.

“So will the others.”

She laid her head on his breast again and took his rod in
her hand. It swelled to fill her grasp. She stroked it, smiling as he twitched
and caught his breath. But there was no smile in the words she spoke. “This
time it will be war.”

“Yes,” he said.

“You aren’t eager for it?”

He stiffened. She stroked a little harder. He sighed. The
tension stayed in him, but transmuted. His speech was a little breathless. “I’m
not as bloodthirsty as some.”

She set herself to pleasuring him, because it was her
pleasure, and because she needed to think about what he had said. Nothing in it
was startling or unexpected. But that he saw it and spoke of it—that made it
real. That gave it power.

In the last moment, she took him into herself, that none of
him be spent. She wondered if he knew how completely he had given himself to
her. Most likely not. He must always fancy that he was the stronger, that he
was lord and master and she must, in the end, defer to him.

One could become adept at catering to such delusions. Tilia
thought about that while he slept, snoring softly. She could feel him inside
her still. Warmth; a kind of presence. Maybe—maybe at last—

Maybe. It was not the best of times to bring a child into
the world, but it was all the time she had. Fitting that it should begin now,
so soon after his sister had borne a daughter before the Lady. They were all
making a new world, mingling the blood of the cities and the steppe, the Lady’s
children and the Mare’s children and the children of the wild horsemen.

After a winter that was reckoned harsh in this gentle
country came a mild spring: warm days, chilly nights, soft rain to wash away
the snow and wake the sleeping earth. Tribesmen began to take horse and ride
eastward. Fewer went than the elders had predicted, but somewhat more than Agni
had hoped.

They did not all go at once. They left alone or in bands of
three or four. They took as much wealth as they could carry; nor did Agni try
to prevent them, though he forbade them to take more than two remounts apiece.

“There’s our trouble,” he said to Sarama on a brisk morning
after a night of rain. He had gone to survey the horse-herds, and met her on
her way to ride with Taditi’s archers. She was riding one of the stallions from
the White Horse herds; for the Mare was great with foal, holding court among
the herds like a king’s first wife, and doing no work but that of waiting for
the birth.

Agni paused with Sarama on a rise above the long field in
which the horses grazed. She nodded at his observation, looking out over what
seemed to be, what was, a great number of horses. “Too many stallions and
geldings. Too few mares.”

“It’s not anything people think of,” he said. “On the
steppe, when one raids, one captures the enemy’s wealth, his women, his horses.
Here—there are no horses.”

“Your mares are in foal, yes?” she said.

“All three of them,” he said. “And there’s the Mare, too;
and a few others here and there. But not enough. If we’re to live here, we have
to have horses.”

“Yes,” she said. She had not taken her eyes from the herd.
The stallion fretted under her. He was young and not well disciplined, and he
did not suffer Mitani well at all. Mitani, like the king he was, ignored the
young fool and busied himself with a clump of grass.

The young stallion squealed, bucked, skittered sideways.
Sarama made no effort to stop him.

Agni opened his mouth to say more, but shut it again. She
hardly noticed. Her mind was gone already, riding with Taditi and the archers.
Her body was not slow to follow it.

Agni let her go. He knew better than to think that his
trouble concerned her more than a little. The world she lived in touched only
occasionally on anyone else’s, and even more seldom since Rani was born.

He shrugged, sighed. He had not honestly expected Sarama to
solve his problem for him. The answer was obvious in any case. There were no
mares here. There were mares on the steppe.

“Someone should go and bring back a herd of mares,” said a
voice behind him, shaping his thought into words.