The Horsemasters (11 page)

“No one would listen to me,” she sobbed into the reindeer fur of his shoulder. “I tried to tell them about Morna, about what she had done before, but no one would listen.”

“They are afraid of the Mistress,” Ronan said grimly. “They did not want to hear what you had to say.”

Nel sobbed on, and he held her, wishing that he had not met her like this. Until now his anger had made him strong; he did not want to feel what Nel was making him feel.

“Come,” he said bracingly, “it will be growing dark soon. I must go.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and pried her away from his chest.

Nel sobbed on.

“I will come back for you, minnow,” he heard himself saying. “I promise you I will come back.”

“You p-promise?”

“I promise.”

Valiantly, she tried to smile. She said, “Well, if you won’t take me, Ronan, at least take Nigak.”

Hope flickered in the bleakness of Ronan’s heart. He looked at the wolf. Nigak’s yellow eyes were fixed on Nel’s face. The hope died. Ronan shook his head and said, “He would never leave you.”

“For you, he would,” Nel answered. “If I told him to.”

Ronan swallowed. He wanted desperately to have Nigak. “I couldn’t take him away from you, Nel,” he said. “You love him.”

“I have Sharan,” she said. “And I would feel better if I knew that he was with you. Please, Ronan, take him.”

It was not in him to refuse any longer. “All right,” Ronan said, “if he will come.” And he reached once more for his pack.

“Where will you go?” Nel asked, watching with great tragic eyes as he shouldered the heavy load.

“To our summer camp for now,” Ronan said. “The caves there are not in use during the winter, and there is yet some game in the area. I can fish through the ice on the river, too, and there are always birds.”

“That is a good idea.” She brightened. “I know, Ronan! You must search out a place that the Mistress does not know about. Then you can come back and get me, and we will start our own tribe away from them all.”

He did not smile at her naiveté, but answered gravely, “That is a good idea.” He glanced at the sky. “It is growing late, Nel. I must go.”

She nodded hard, three times.

He turned away.

“Nigak,” he heard Nel saying behind him, “go with Ronan.”

The wolf whined in protest. Ronan felt his muscles clench.

“Go with Ronan,” Nel said again.

Ronan did not look back. Nigak was not going to come. Desolation, so successfully kept at bay all afternoon by anger, swept through his soul. He made himself continue walking, a solitary figure in the growing dusk, his eyes fixed steadily ahead.

Suddenly, Ronan felt something warm and damp poke into the hollow of his hand, It was Nigak’s nose. Tears slid blindly down Ronan’s face as his fingers closed gently over that precious black gift of love. He and the wolf walked on.

PART TWO

The Tribe of the Wolf

(Three years later)

Chapter Eight

Thorn stood just beyond the shadow of the cliff, enjoying the thin beginning-of-winter sunshine. He and his father should have been at work in the sacred cave hours ago, finishing the new paintings for the Buffalo Tribe’s Winter Ceremony, but Rilik had been called into a meeting with the chief. Haras had summoned the council of nirum to discuss the situation of the three tribal members who had disappeared the night before.

Fara and Crim were gone, as well as Eken, Fara’s sister. They had taken with them all their clothing, their cooking gear, and their sleeping skins. No one was in any doubt as to why they had gone, or where. The question Haras wished to discuss was should the tribe go after them and force them to return?

It was the loss of the women that concerned Haras most. Crim was a good man, a good hunter, and well liked by all. The tribe would miss him. But the women were the valuable ones; two young females of child-bearing age were a resource no tribe would want to whistle down the wind.

“All right, lad.” It was his father’s voice at last, and Thorn turned in time to see Rilik stepping off the cliff path onto the valley floor. “We can go now.”

“I am ready, Father.” They moved together toward the river, and Thorn asked, “The men are not going after Crim and the women, then?”

“Na.” Rilik’s voice was clipped. “Haras decided to let them go—”

Thorn glanced sideways at his father’s face. It was obvious that Rilik did not agree with the chief’s decision.

“What did Herok say?” Thorn ventured after they had launched the small bark boat into the water and scrambled in. Herok was Thorn’s cousin, whom Eken was to have wed after the Winter Ceremony this year.

Rilik grunted as he pushed off” with the oars. “He was not pleased.”

A cold wind was coming down the river, and Thorn pulled up the hood of his reindeer fur tunic. “I can understand why Eken would choose to go with Fara,” he said as he huddled into the warmth of his hood. “They were always close, even for sisters, and Eken would not want Fara to be without a woman of her blood when her time for childbirth comes again.”

Rilik was propelling them through the water with smooth strong strokes. “Sa,” he said grimly. “I can understand Eken. The one whom I cannot understand is Crim. He is a man. His loyalty to the tribe should prevail over foolish fondness for a woman.”

“It is not just foolish fondness, Father,” Thorn said, a little defiantly. “Fara swore she would kill herself if she had twins again and the tribe exposed them. She meant it, Father. I saw her face when they took away the last ones…” Thorn stopped talking abruptly, afraid that his voice was going to crack.

“She probably is going to have twins again,” Rilik said gloomily. “She has done it twice before; why should the third time be different?” He managed to shrug without breaking the smooth rhythm of his strokes. “That is why Haras decided to let them go. He said that the tribe does not need to be cursed with another set of twins.”

“And they have gone to the Valley of the Wolf?”

Rifik gave one last shove with his paddle. “It seems likely. Crim was seen talking to the men from Ronan’s new tribe at the Autumn Gathering. Probably that is when he got directions from them.”

The boat had reached the shore, and both man and boy jumped out to drag it out of the water.

“Father…” This was said as the two walked across the rocky shore toward the cliff they would have to climb to reach the sacred cave. “If Fara does have twins, do you think Ronan will let her keep them?”

They had reached the base of the cliff. “That is why Crim has taken her there,” Rilik said. “The shaman says that it is the Way of the Mother to keep one twin. And I am certain Ronan will do what he can to make both Fara and Eken happy. The women will be a valuable addition to that tribe of outlaws he has collected.” Rilik looked upward toward the cave, squinting into the sun. “Just as they are a sore loss to the Tribe of the Buffalo,” he added sourly.

Rilik had reached for the first hand-grip when he heard Thorn say very softly, “I hope that he will let her keep them both.”

Rilik dropped his hand and turned. “Why should he do that?”

Thorn’s fawnlike face looked unusually sober. “Because Ronan is not one to be overly swayed by taboos he does not see the sense of himself.”

“There is great good sense in the taboo against twins.” Rilik’s tone became distinctly dry. “However, I agree with you that Ronan is not a man with an over-great regard for taboos. That is what got him expelled from the Tribe of the Red Deer in the first place.”

“You said yourself that you did not think he was guilty, Father,” Thorn said quickly.

Rilik raised his eyebrows. “Let us say rather that there is some doubt as to his guilt.” He contemplated his son for a long moment in silence before remarking, “I did not know you had such regard for Ronan, Thorn. From whence did this admiration come?”

Thorn flushed. “I used to bear him company when he was with us recovering from his injury. Don’t you remember, Father?”

“I remember how badly he was hurt,” Rilik said. “To say true, I have never understood how he managed to make it through the Buffalo Pass on that broken leg. If it had not been for that tame wolf of his, he would most certainly have died before we found him.”

“I used to bear him company while he was getting better,” Thorn repeated. “I used to draw…for him.”

The look Rilik gave his son was sharp as a spear point. “Draw for him?”

“Sa.”

Silence. Finally Rilik asked grimly, “Did you draw his face, Thorn?”

Silence again. “Sa.” Thorn’s voice was soft yet subtly defiant. “I did.”

“Did he know what you were doing?”

“Sa,” Thorn said again. He met his father’s piercing gaze. “He was not afraid, Father. I told you he does not care about taboos he does not see the sense of.”

“They do not draw in the Tribe of the Red Deer.” Rilik’s voice grew grimmer with each word he spoke. “They do not make the hunting magic in the way of we who follow Sky God. Ronan would not understand the danger that lies in a likeness. It was wrong of you, Thorn, to take advantage of his ignorance. Very wrong.” Rilik’s eyes bored into his son’s face. “What did you do with the drawings?”

“I threw them in the river,” Thorn lied.

Now Rilik let his anger loose. “How many times must you be told? To draw something is to capture its spirit! That is why we draw the animals we hunt, so we can gain power over them. But it is taboo to draw the likeness of a man. That kind of power is dangerous, Thorn! No artist should ever so abuse his gift as to use it in such wise. I have told you and told you and told you…”

Thorn bowed his head and listened. It was true that he had been told and told and told. He did not understand himself what it was that drove him to draw people’s faces. Drawing animals was enough for his father, had been enough for all the other artists who had gone before him. Why was he alone cursed with this unnatural desire?

At last Rilik fell silent. Thorn heard his father sigh. “Come,” he said in a quieter voice. “Let us get to our work.”

It took them twenty minutes of climbing to reach the hole that marked the opening to the tribe’s sacred cave. They retrieved the soapstone lamps filled with animal fat that they kept just inside the entrance, and Rilik lit the wicks with the live coal which he had carried in an antelope horn at his belt. This particular cliffside cave was extremely deep, and the lamps provided only a little light against the gigantic darkness.

Rilik knew the way so well, however, that he could travel the narrow galleries with astonishing sureness and speed.

Thorn followed his father along the dark and tortuous underground passages. After about half a mile they passed a black and silent underground lake, and then they were in the first of the cave’s large halls. Rilik turned and followed the walls of the hall, Thorn close on his heels.

They had gone but a short way when Thorn felt the floor beginning to rise beneath his feet. He lifted his stone lamp higher, the chamber walls widened, and then they were in yet another gallery.

The thrill of astonishment and awe he felt every time he came into this place jolted through Thorn once again. For here, in this hidden, high-ceilinged rotunda, the Buffalo tribe kept its greatest treasure. Here Rilik had captured for his people the spirits of the animals the tribe hunted in order to live. Upon the smooth and polished wall were painted buffalo and horses and ibexes and red deer. The animals were so vivid with life they seemed almost to leap out from their stone setting.

Thorn slowly turned his reverent eyes from the paintings and looked at his father. For the vast majority of the paintings in this room were Rilik’s work. Four separate panels of animal pictures had he done, all marked by the same loose and airy style. Only the buffalo looked a little stiff, a little less fluid and airy than the rest of the animal portraits. When Thorn had asked his father about this, Rilik had replied that as the buffalo was the tribe’s totem, and was consequently neither hunted nor eaten by them, it was not proper to call it up in all its naturalistic reality.

There were no humans at all pictured on the rotunda walls.

Although Thorn had been learning the skills of painting for a number of winters, it was only this year that he had been allowed into the sacred cave, after his initiation into tribal manhood. At first he had only watched his father work, awed by the sureness and the skill of the older man. Thorn had been taught by the shaman to outline his drawing first, and then to fill in the body of the picture. The contour lines could be erased after, Jessl had said. But Rilik was so sure of himself, was so excellent a draftsman, that he laid the wet pigment directly upon the rock walls without outlining first.

At present Thorn was working on the picture of an ibex. These mountain goats were an important food source for the Tribe of the Buffalo, and Thorn was concerned to get as accurate a likeness as he possibly could. He was not yet as confident of his technique as Rilik, so he had begun his painting by outlining the picture in black earth pitch, drawing the lines with a finely tipped bird’s feather. The ocher colors with which he was filling in the body were also done with feathers, the delicate lines and gradations of shading evoked by tips of varying thicknesses.

Thorn enjoyed the work. He was happy and excited to see the ibex taking shape under his skilled hand. So it was with a pang of sorrowful bewilderment that he wondered, as he stepped back from the wall to see what finishing touches were yet needed on his picture, Why is this not enough?

* * * *

Winter passed in the territory of the Tribe of the Buffalo, and the first moon of spring rose in the sky. “We will learn if Fara had twins again at the Spring Gathering,” Rilik said to his son one chill afternoon as he sat in the men’s cave engraving the picture of a horse on a reindeer leg bone. “There will probably be someone there from the Tribe of the Wolf to trade reindeer hides.”

“Ronan himself does not come?” Thorn asked.