The Care and Feeding of Griffins (24 page)

“
Hi,” said Taryn, holding out her hand.  “My name’s Taryn.”

“
Is it truly?” the horsewoman asked, seemingly taken dramatically aback.  She sent a glance to Tonka, who turned his palms upward in a discrete gesture and nodded.  When she looked back at Taryn, her eyes were wide and wondering.  She took the proffered wrist, saying, “I am called Ven here.  So you may call me.”

“
Oh, you’re Ven!” Taryn said, remembering the few grudging words she’d managed to get out of the horsemen sent to loom over her camp in those early days.  “I’ve heard about you.”

“
Have you?”  Ven’s ears flicked and she gave back a step or two.  Her expression turned guarded.  “And what have you heard?”

“
That you’re in charge.”

Startled laughter blew up from the horsemen still at the fires, even though Taryn would have been willing to swear they hadn
’t been listening, and a smile ticced over Ven’s lips in several short bursts before it finally openly spread.

“
Aye,” she said, giving her tail a strong flick against Tonka’s sides.  He had folded his arms across his chest and was giving Taryn an impressive frown.  “That is very true.  I have heard much of you as well, and I begin to think perhaps it may be as true as what you have heard of me.”

Horsemen had begun to arrive, their hooves clopping with muted resonance on the packed earth floor.  There was little conversation and all of it hushed as newcomers spied Taryn and her griffin.  Ven raised her eyes to watch her people assemble and then she looked down at Taryn again. 
“Come to the table, human,” she said.  “There is enough to share.”

That was an understatement.  The tables were laden with huge baskets of flat, hard bread, platters of stewed meat, bowls of vegetables swimming in sauce, jars of steaming tea and more.  Food was spilling out everywhere, but the words had the smack of formality to them.  Taryn deposited Aisling on the floor and shrugged off her backpack, saying,
“I brought something, if that helps.”  She held out her box of Hershey bars.

That startled look disrupted the stoicism that seemed to be the standard thing for horsemen, and then Ven looked back at Tonka again.  She said something softly in another language, and Tonka shook his head, his eyes fixed on Taryn.  His reply was a heavy one, and maybe it was just that Taryn couldn
’t understand what they were saying, but it sounded pretty grim.  But he stepped forward to accept the box.

“
Eat with me,” he said, resting his hand briefly on her shoulder.  He glanced back at Ven and then led Taryn to the furthest table.

Not even this lodge could hold all the horsemen.  Taryn could see young ones taking heaping platters outside and guessed that at least half the villagers were dining al fresco today.  Likewise, places were obviously assigned well in advance, and Tonka
’s table was definitely the one were the big boys ate.  Almost everyone who came to stand there had that black bar over his or her eyes and there was plenty of room to stretch out, unlike the other tables, where horsemen stood flank to flank all the way down the line.

Clearly, nothing was going to happen until everybody was here.  Taryn whistled Aisling over and petted him, surreptitiously eyeing the others sharing this table under the concealing curtain of her hair as she stayed bent.  She recognized Ahm, and Ahm certainly seemed to recognize her as well, but the other five arranged around the table were strangers.  All but one of them were very pointedly not looking at her, but the one that was was not only looking, he was smiling at her. 

He was old, his human body softened and lined, the fur of his horse half a dull brown shot through with white.  He wore paint in spirals on each sagging pectoral, and small white circles like tears beneath the black bar that masked his eyes.  He looked at her openly and after a while, he leaned over to put their eyes on a level, letting her know that he knew she was looking back through the disguise of her hair.  She gave Aisling a few extra pats and straightened up, blushing and avoiding the elder’s penetrating gaze.

Everyone seemed to have settled in where they were supposed to be.  The foals filed out, all but one, who came up to the chieftain
’s table and took a place at the elder horseman’s side.  The foal (colt or filly, Taryn couldn’t tell without doing something incredibly rude, like leaning out to look) had a red bar over its eyes and spirals painted on its flat chest, and it was trying hard to stare with dignity straight ahead rather than at Taryn, at whom it clearly longed to be looking instead.

In the stillness that followed the last foal
’s exit, Tonka finally moved.  He raised his hands, palms up and arms wide.  “Before time was, there was only darkness.”

Perfect silence greeted this dramatic statement.  Taryn jiggled one foot to keep Aisling focused on her shoelaces and listened with what she hoped was an appropriately pious expression.

“From darkness, the world was formed.  The earth brought substance.  The sun brought warmth.  The waters brought growth.  In all that early world was desolation and death, but where those three elements gathered, there could be life.  And today, ‘tis the same.  By the labors of our bodies and by the grace of the gods do we bring life to one another.  Share, my kinsmen, and know that we are rooted in this world and to each other.”

He lowered his hands and the meal began.  Tonka took a piece of bread from the basket before him.  It was long and wide, squarish, and slightly concave.  He filled it with a dipperful of the vegetables in their savory, green sauce, and added a huge chunk of stewed meat from a platter.  Before Taryn could do the same, he set the bread-plate down before him, pulled a bize-sized portion from his share of the meat, and handed it to her.

All around the lodge, Taryn could see the same thing playing out.  One horseman with one bread-dish portioning out bites to another.  The elder with the disconcerting stare fed the foal, Ahm fed the dappled stallion next to her, and so on.  Only Ven seemed to be capable of eating by herself.  Maybe Tonka was supposed to be feeding her instead of Taryn.

Hesitantly, Taryn took the piece she was offered and ate it.  The richness of the meat
’s juices, the flavors of herbs and sauce and spice—heat that was damned near sexual flooded her from the mouth down to the soles of her feet.  She managed not to whimper with the goodness of it, but couldn’t help closing her eyes to savor it without distraction.

“
Tis poor stuff,” Tonka remarked, offering her a second piece.

“
Are you kidding?” she gasped, clutching the meat as though to protect it from his insensitivity.  “It’s delicious!”

“
Tis scarcely fit for consumption,” he countered evenly.  “I should have fed it to the fowl.  I am ashamed that my guest should suffer its taste.”

“
You—!”  She broke off, passing the meat slowly down to Aisling and considering Tonka’s solemn face.  “This is one of those Farasai things I’m not supposed to understand, isn’t it?”

His ears flicked, and Ven nearby smiled faintly. 
“You are too generous with your praise,” Tonka said.  “This is not…a Farasai thing.  One cannot display gratitude without revealing one’s lack.”

“
Yeah, well, I hardly think I’m keeping my enormous list of lacks a secret from anybody here.  Besides, my mother always told me to give credit where credit is due.”

“
What does that mean?”  The foal—probably a girl, if Taryn could judge by the voice—leaned around the elder horseman to see her better.  “Is it…that one should always pay for gifts?”

“
Not exactly.  But it does mean that you should always acknowledge the value of things you receive, whether it’s a blanket, good food, or a compliment,” she added, with a sidelong glance at Tonka.

Several low, thoughtful grunts from the nearest tables sounded, proving that anyone who was close enough to overhear her was, in spite of their aggressively nonchalant appearances, listening.  Taryn immediately began to worry about her grammar.

“Do all humans believe this?” the filly asked.

“
Sadly, no.”  Taryn accepted a stewed vegetable from Tonka’s hand.  It was some kind of starchy squash, savory and sweet, and the sauce left an agreeable heat in her mouth.  “But my mother sure did, and she made sure we did too.”

“
My mother has many sayings,” the filly said.  “Leave no debt unanswered.  That is very similar.”

“
I’m not surprised,” Taryn replied.  “Truth is truth.”

More grunts.

The foal nodded and said, “But all Farasai obey the law of debts.  Why do all humans not…give credits?  If you can see it is truth, why is it not law?”

Taryn took the meat Tonka held out to her, but fed it to Aisling, thinking. 
“I don’t know,” she said finally.  “And it makes me a little nervous to be the one speaking for my entire race, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s because there’s so many of us.”

This time, only the painted elder grunted.  His smile had broadened.

“Forgive me that I must ask,” the filly said slowly.  “But I do not understand your meaning.”

“
Who am I talking to?” Taryn asked with a laugh.

“
I am called Shard now,” the filly said.

“
Okay, Shard.  Well, I think…that numbers make it easy for people to ignore the things they know should be laws.  Like…like how a group of small birds will sometimes gang up and drive off an eagle, or how a pack of wolves will go after an elk they could never take down alone.”  A thought occurred.  “Do you have wolves and elk here?”

“
Not as such,” the painted elder said.  “But your meaning is plain.  Speak on.”

She was painfully aware of the silence in the lodge, and she had to lock her eyes on the filly so she wouldn
’t have to see how many of them there were, all of them listening and judging her.  “Animals can get reckless if they’re part of a larger group, is my point.  I don’t know why that happens, but it does.  And humans these days are always in a large group.  So even when they
know
better, they might not always
be
better.  And once one human starts to act out, it’s easier for others to follow.  Pretty soon, the rules change.”

“
But this is tolerated?” Shard pressed.  “Your rules are allowed to change?  Do you have no laws?”

“
We do,” Taryn said.  “But our laws exist to preserve life, property, and liberty.  Not truth.”

“
Why not?”

“
Well…partly because truth is an intangibility.  You can’t break it with a rock, like you can break a plate.  You can’t stab it and kill it.  You can’t lock it up.  That makes every human responsible for holding to the truth him or herself.  In fact,” she went on, nervously eyeing all the silent, staring horsemen, “that has become our greatest truth, that humans are accountable for their own actions.  We give each other the liberty to heed certain truths or not to, as they choose.”

The filly
’s eyes squinted up gradually.  She shook her head, then shook it again, harder.  “Why would you do that?” she asked.

“
Because…it’s a greater show of character for someone to choose to do the right thing than it is to be forced to.  And it all comes back to numbers again, because in a world where there are so many of us milling around, policing people becomes more complicated, especially since doing the wrong thing can sometimes seem very easy and be rewarded pretty highly.  And the more rewards there are, the harder it is for ordinary people to live without them.  Pretty soon, you have a situation where people have to choose between doing the right thing or getting to eat.”

“
What, truly?”  This was Ven, who looked absolutely outraged by this idea.

“
Yes, unfortunately.  So people learn to obey what we call the ‘letter of the law’, rather than following the truth of its spirit, which is a nicer way of saying that we make it easy for people to do the wrong thing, or worse, to do nothing at all.  We still have the things that you’d call truths, but they become luxuries.”

“
I don’t understand how that can be,” Shard said, with what sounded like a great deal of patience.  “If an evil man stepped to another’s lodge and set a fire to it, how shall it be easier to watch it burn than to put it out?”

Taryn studied the filly
’s earnest confusion for a second or two.  “Okay, let’s run with that example,” she said.  “If Tonka stepped up to a lodge and set it on fire, would you be the first to put it out?”

The simple question provoked an astoundingly violent reaction in the other tables
in the form of stamping, rearing, and several drawn runkas until Tonka raised his hand for silence.  Taryn could feel him staring down the back of her neck, but she kept her eyes calmly and questioningly on the filly.

“
My chief would never do such a thing!” Shard stammered finally, her young face positively moon-like with shock.

“
That isn’t what I asked.”

Shard
’s mouth opened and closed.  She looked around to seek the painted elder’s eyes, and he merely gazed back at her.