White Mare's Daughter (26 page)

She came, at least, and sat at the table. He served her as
if she had been a Mother, with a flourish that was lost on her.

Or perhaps not. She did know how to accept service. He was
mildly astonished. For all her sullenness and her difficult manners, she had,
in that, a native grace.

When he had done all that he judged proper, he sat opposite
her and fell hungrily on his own portion. She, having blunted the edge of her
own hunger, watched him in—surprise? dismay?

“Yes, I eat,” he said. “I, too.”

“You,” she said. “You—” She gestured, flick of wrist, dart
of fingers: miming cooking, carving, serving.

She mimed it very well. He smiled at that; nodded. “Yes. I
cook. I serve.”

“You,” she said. “Man. Man not—cook. Serve.”

His brows went up, and not only at the proof that, after
all, she had been listening to his days of chatter. “No? Then what does a man
do?”

Her frown had in it less of incomprehension, and more of
bafflement. “Man—horse. Man—” She spoke words then that he did not know, but
committed to memory:
hunt, fight
. He
thought he knew what they meant: drawn bow, hand raised to strike.

But as to that last: “Why would a man want to . . .
fight
?”

“Fight,” she said. “Hunt. Not—cook. Serve. Woman cook. Woman
serve.”

He nodded. “Yes. Woman cook, serve, too. And hunt. But not
fight. Fights are not proper.”

Her frown deepened. “You are man. You do—woman do—”

“I do what a woman does.” By the Lady; this creature thought
him improper. He must not laugh; laughter would be perilous, just now. “No, no.
I am a man, I am proper, but when a Mother tells me—”

She did not understand. He hissed in frustration. As simply,
as clearly as he could, he said, “Man, yes. Mother say,
Do this
. I do this. Woman cook, serve, yes. Sometimes man may cook.
For Mother. If Mother say.”

He felt like a fool, and no doubt sounded like one, too. But
she understood him. “For Mother?” He nodded. She tossed her head in a broad
mime of outrage. “Tell Mother no! Woman do this. You man.”

He would not grow angry. He would not. That she should
demand a woman—as if a man were not good enough. As if his presence diminished
her.

In some cities, he had heard, such things were considered,
if not proper, then at least acceptable. But not in this part of the Lady’s
country.

He swallowed his temper, and held it down until he could
speak calmly. “In the morning,” he said, “I will tell the Mother. Tonight, you
stay here. Do you understand? Stay here.”

“Stay?” She looked about. “Here?”

“Here,” he said.

He braced for further resistance. But one of the horses
whickered below, a soft contented sound.

She stiffened at it, then eased abruptly. “Here,” she said,
a little grudgingly, but that did not trouble him. She took the bed with an air
that dared him to argue.

She stared when he spread his pallet. Had she expected him
to be that importunate?

He did not linger to discover the answer. He was tired, and
he was out of patience. He turned his back on her and went to sleep.

oOo

“No,” the Mother said.

Danu had expected that. “My presence to her is an insult.
Mother—”

“Let her learn to behave properly,” said the Mother. “If she
will not suffer a man to wait on her, then let her learn. We have our own ways
here. She will accept them.”

“Even,” Danu asked, “though she is a guest?”

“A guest who is proper accepts the ways of her hosts.” The
Mother’s voice and manner were immovable. “No, my child. The Lady asks that you
do this. She is quite firm on the subject.”

“So is Sarama,” said Danu, but he could not resist further.
Not once the Mother had invoked the Lady.

The Mother, who must know that very well, brushed his hair
with her hand, as his own Mother might have done. “Child,” she said, “remember
what I told you of permitting yourself to be proud. Never let anyone scorn you.
This is a child herself, rude and untutored, with dreadful manners. Let her
learn to serve the Lady as a woman should.”

Humility would not suit Sarama well, Danu thought but
forbore to say. The Mother kept him for a while, for the apparent pleasure of
his company; then sent him back to his less than pleasant duty.

“Mother says,” said Danu, “no. You stay. I serve.”

He sounded conspicuously calm about it. Sarama was learning
to read him, or so she hoped. He was not happy. He yielded to his king as a man
should, and did his king’s bidding, but he was much too carefully obedient.

Sarama tried to imagine her brother Agni doing the will of a
king who was a woman. The thought was too preposterous. Agni had no such
compliance in him as this man seemed to have.

That he was a prince she had no doubt. She had seen how the
king was with him. He had position here, and a place of respect. There must be
council or gathering of the men apart from the women; if there was, he must be
high in it.

And yet the king had him playing nursemaid to a stranger.
Was he being punished? Or was she?

He seemed happy while he did women’s work. That was most
puzzling of all. He was adept at it. He did it well. He managed somehow to keep
the house clean, the two of them fed, the horses tended, and himself in good
order, without the slightest show of difficulty. The king sent him on errands,
too, and the plain-faced young woman who seemed to be the king’s daughter
seemed often to be demanding service of him.

She was an odd one. Her name was Catin; she was called the
Mother’s heir-like, Sarama thought, a king’s chosen son, who would be king
after him. It did not seem to be as uncertain a thing as it could be among the
tribes. Catin was settled in it, as solidly as Sarama had been in her place as
Old Woman’s successor.

It seemed to Sarama that Catin was more to Danu than simple
friend or kin. That they were not blood kin she had gathered. He was, it
seemed, from another city—though why or how he had come here, she did not
understand. He did not act as a husband should act, even a husband of a lesser
tribe who had married into the king’s tent. And yet there was something between
them, something other than mere amity.

oOo

The day after Danu relayed to Sarama the Mother’s refusal
to give her a less uncomfortable jailer, Catin came calling at the house by the
river. The night’s rain had blown away, leaving a sky full of restless clouds,
and a sharp chill in the air. She was dressed for it in a wonderful coat of
woven wool, sewn with bright threads in patterns that made Sarama want to reach
out and touch.

But Catin was not a person to invite such liberties. Sarama
was going out as Catin came in, intending to ride the Mare along the river.

Catin barely acknowledged Sarama. Sarama, who had grown to
expect such of her, shrugged and went on her way.

The Mare was eager for a run. The colt did not wait to be
given leave: he was careening round the meadow, tail in the air, laughing as
only a colt can laugh.

Sarama had not been pleased at all, at first, to see that
after all these people did know of horses. It was only the one, the colt that
the traveller had left behind as tribute to the Lady.

He was far beneath the Mare, but quite out of the ordinary
in that he seemed to know it. He kept a polite distance, offered no insolence
that the Mare did not permit, and had perfectly reasonable manners, for a
yearling colt. If it had not so evidently annoyed Danu, she would long since
have stopped pretending to dislike him.

Away from the house and from Danu’s watchful eye, she could
let herself laugh at his antics. He ran rings round the Mare, danced,
curvetted, did battle with air.

He was a well-made colt, handsome, and fleet of foot. When
his time came, she thought, he would be smooth-gaited and sensible, but with
ample fire.

He still was not good enough for the Mare; but he was a very
fine colt. Though she would hardly say such a thing to Danu.

Danu was besotted with him. Sarama wondered if he knew what
he had done: found and claimed his stallion, and made himself a man after the
custom of the tribes. They could not have such a custom here, where there was
only one stallion in all the west of the world.

This very young stallion was swifter than the Mare, but he
wearied much sooner. He ran beside her for a while as she skimmed the winter
grass beside the river; then fell back, but following doggedly nonetheless,
till the Mare took pity on him and slowed to a dancing trot, and thence to a
walk.

Sarama walked them both till they were cool, well down the
river and then back again. She had seen another town there, in a bend of the
river; but she was not minded to go exploring. Time enough for that when she
was surer of herself in that first city to which she had come.

Maybe in summer or in kinder weather there would have been
people out and about. Today everyone seemed to keep to house and hearth. She
blew on her fingers to warm them, and slipped her hands beneath the fleece of
her saddle. The Mare’s warmth seeped into her.

She would be glad of the fire that Danu always kept burning,
of the warmth that would bake the chill out of her bones. The horses were in
comfort in their winter coats and the warmth of their run.

They were glad to run loose once she had come back to the
house. The Mare waited impatiently to be stripped of saddle and bridle and
rubbed dry where she had sweated. Just as Sarama finished, she pulled away,
dancing and racing again with the colt, vying to be the first to fling herself
down and roll.

oOo

Sarama was smiling as she climbed the ladder into the
upper part of the house, though she meant to put on a dour expression before
Danu could see. It was a game of sorts, to try his temper. He was unnaturally
difficult to provoke.

The outer room was empty. The fire burned a little low, but
not banked as it would have been if he had left. He would be in the inner room,
then. She warmed her hands at the fire, content simply to stand in a place that
was both warm and out of the wind.

At first she thought it was the wind muttering in the eaves.
But no: there were voices within.

She had sharpened her ears before she thought. Futile,
maybe, but she had been listening harder than she hoped her nursemaid knew. She
could piece together enough of what they said, to hazard a guess at the rest.

“Do you like her?” That was Catin, and a note in her voice
that told Sarama rather too clearly what they had been doing.

He laughed, richer and deeper than Sarama had ever heard
him. “No, I don’t like her. Do you?”

“I don’t think she tries very hard.” There was a pause. “You
could come back to my Mother’s house.”

“The Mother said no.” Was there regret in that? Sarama could
not tell.

“She thinks that that one is the Lady’s messenger. I think
that the Lady could have better taste.”

“Ah now,” said Danu. “She’s not so bad. I think she’s
testing me. It’s very insulting, you know, for a woman as high as she must be,
to be waited on by a man.”

“She should not be insulted. You are the Mother’s son of
Three Birds. The Lady brought you here. She speaks to you. She gave you the
horse to look after, and then this woman.”

“Sometimes I wonder why,” Danu said, almost too low to hear.

“Because she knew that you could do it.”

“But can I?” He made a sound: laughter perhaps, or a snort
of disgust. “She despises me, I think.”

“The Mother does not,” said Catin. “Nor I.”

Sarama had crept closer as she listened, till she stood
barely breathing by the curtain that separated inner room from outer. With hunter’s
care, she parted the curtain a fraction, just enough to see what lay within.

They were wound in one another: rocking together almost
idly, then with waxing urgency.

Sarama tasted blood. She had bitten her lip. She drew back
as silently as she could, crept through the room, slipped down the ladder and
made herself busy with the horses.

At least, she thought as she scoured their beds and spread
fresh straw, she need not wonder any longer what those two were to one another.
Was Catin his wife, then? Or were they doing what sometimes people did in the
tribes, and could die for it, too?

oOo

They had seemed to be making no secret of it. When she
went back up again with some trepidation, they were in the outer room,
decorously dressed, but Catin’s hair was out of its plait and Danu wore a smile
that was difficult to mistake. Sarama saw no shame in it.

He waited on Catin as he always did on Sarama. Catin acted
as if that were only to be expected: that a prince, a king’s son of another
city, should be her servant. It was precisely as if he were a woman and she a
man.

What if . . .

Preposterous.

And yet.

There were no warriors in this country. No one carried a
weapon. She had seen knives, but only for cutting meat. No swords. Hunters
carried bows, and sometimes spears.

Danu had said that people did not fight.

How could anyone live in the world without war? Men
conquered men. That was their gods’ decree. One took what one could take, and
not always because one needed it. War was glory. For a man, there was none greater.

She looked about her with eyes that had just learned to see.
No weapons. No walls, no defenses about the cities. They were all open to any
who might come.

A man of the tribes would look on this place with lust. The
gold on Danu’s arm, the copper of knifeblade and axeblade, ornament and
binding, the beauty of the clothing that even the poorest seemed to wear, all
the painted pots with their designs either whimsical or holy—these were riches
beyond the dreams of a simple tribesman. And here they were taken for granted.
No one stole them. No one thought of fighting for them.