White Mare's Daughter (72 page)

So much was different. And yet so much was the same. Sarama
had not forgiven Agni for coming here—but she seemed to have decided to accept
it. There was, after all, no changing it.

Agni did not want to leave Sarama alone with her lover,
but a boy came running with somewhat that Agni must do, and there was no
evading it. That led to something else, and then to something else again, the
cares of kingship catching and holding him till well after sunset.

He went to bed alone as before. As before, the women were
all elsewhere—but tonight they were in their own houses. He had expressly
forbidden his men to seek them out. If they sought out this man or that—well,
and what man was strong enough, or fool enough, to resist?

No one had sought him out. The Mother had made it rather
clear by her distance that she had no such ambitions. The younger women seemed
less than enthralled with him. Nor had he been drawn to any one of them.

He caught himself thinking unaccountably of the Mother’s
heir, the one whose name was Tilia. If this had been a conquered tribe, Agni
would have taken her to wife. That was custom for a conqueror, to take the
conquered chieftain’s eldest daughter, and others of his daughters too if he
were so inclined. With that marriage, that joining of his blood to theirs, he became
fully and completely king of the tribe.

And suppose, Agni thought, that he did this. That he married
the Mother’s heir. The people would have to accept him then. Would they not?
They could hardly ignore him if he stood beside their own ruler.

He lay on his back in the darkened room, listening to the
sounds of people sleeping about him: Patir’s soft snore, Mika’s toss and
murmur, Taditi’s slightly rough breathing. He could marry that sullen,
beautiful woman. Oh yes, he could do that. There was nothing in marriage that
required a woman to love her husband, only to honor and obey him. Even that one
could be taught to do as much, surely.

His blood quickened at the thought of her in his bed—in this
bed, a warm and ample armful. She might not come willingly, but she would stay
because she wished to. He had a gift for that; in solitude, to himself, he
could admit it.

He went to sleep greatly pleased with himself, and dreamed
of her—glaring at him and bidding him begone, but she had no power to banish
him. Only Skyfather had that.

It was, he decided, a good enough omen. He carried it with
him into waking, and set out at once to find the Mother.

oOo

She sat on the step of the house that she had taken, in a
circle of children, instructing them in something that held them rapt. They
were not, Agni was interested to note, all or even mostly female. Small boys
had teaching, too, it seemed, just as the girls did. It was very different from
the tribes.

Agni had been learning a little of these people’s
language—by accident, almost, as Tillu and later Mika spoke for him, and he,
standing idly by, began to listen for the words, to try to match them to the
ones that he had spoken. It was a scattered, ill-matched collection he had, but
sometimes it made a little sense.

The Mother was speaking simple words, words that children
could understand. Agni found he could fit them together as often as not. They
were stories, teaching-tales: why the thunder rolled, and what made the rain.

Skyfather had no part in it here. It was all the Lady, and
the winds who were her servants, and the rain that waited on her pleasure.

He was noticed; there was no way he could not be. But the
Mother did not pause for him, nor did the children cease their listening. He
crouched on his heels just outside of the circle, and listened to the stories.

They grew easier for a while; then his head began to ache.
It was difficult, making sense of words in a language that he barely knew.

The Mother ended her teaching soon after he tired of it. The
children were greatly disappointed, but she was adamant. “That’s enough for
today,” she said. “Now go, show your mothers how you’ve learned to serve the
Lady.”

They left then, with many glances back. All but Agni. He had
not brought anyone with him who could speak the language. He began to think
that he had done a foolish thing.

The Mother said, “Come here.”

A woman did not command a man; it was not done. And yet Agni
obeyed her, because it pleased him. He settled on one knee beside her,
searching her face as she searched his.

She seemed to like what she saw: her eyes glinted a little.
She was not as old as Taditi, though she was still old enough to be his mother.
He could see her daughter Tilia in her, but rather more of her son, the beauty
blurred and thickened by age but still perceptible.

What she saw in him he could not tell. Strangeness, maybe. A
likeness to his sister—whether that was good or ill.

He could see no hatred in her. She did not have the look of
a conquered creature.

And yet she had given him this city. She must know what she
had done, and at least begin to understand it.

She let him know by signs that she wanted him to help her
up. He did it for courtesy, as he would with an aunt or a grandmother. Her grip
was warm and surprisingly strong, but soft, as if she did not know or care to
know her strength.

In that she was like all her people. She walked, and he
walked with her.

It was clear soon enough that she was taking him toward the
temple. She did not take him into it—rather to his disappointment; no man ever walked
there, that much he had been assured of. But there had never been a king in
this city before, either.

She led him past that carved and painted marvel, rounding
the curve of the city and turning outward from it. He had not been in that part
before. It was as like the rest as one part of the wood was like another,
painted wooden houses, sturdy dark-haired people, few dogs and no horses, and
all the cattle were out in the fields.

Men did not strut like warriors here, nor did women creep
softly in veils. Children were much the same as they were in the tribes, naked
most of them, playing noisily in packs and running hither and yon.

The girlchildren were noisier, here where no one warned them
to be modest. The boys were not permitted such freedom.

Agni heard one bold manchild let out a blood-curdling whoop.
It cut off abruptly at the snap of a word from a man who sat on a doorstep.

He was a great bull of a man with a wonderful curly beard
and a deep drumroll of a voice. Among the tribes he would have been a notable
warrior. Here it seemed he was relegated to the care of children.

He greeted the Mother with an inclination of the head, and
Agni with a flat stare. The Mother took little notice of him. Agni followed
suit, as a king should. He felt the dark eyes on him for as long as he was in
sight.

oOo

They went a little farther, to a house shaded by the
spreading branches of a tree. Tilia was in it, and Sarama, sitting with a
handful of young women, making arrows as women in the tribes would make coats
for their men.

Agni’s coming wrought a great silence. The Mother strode
through it as if it had been a field of tall grass, bore Agni with her and sat
in a place that opened before her. King’s art, that, and splendidly done.

She made no particular move, but Sarama came and sat at her
feet, a little clumsy with the weight of the child. The Mother spoke to her,
words that again Agni almost understood. Sarama set them in his own language—in
hers, if she would remember it. “Tell us what you came to tell.”

Agni kept his eyes on the Mother, but he was keenly aware of
the other eyes on him, and one pair in particular, regarding him steadily. He
did not flatter himself that she took any pleasure in the sight of him.

He would have much preferred to speak to the Mother alone. But
if she wished it to be as it was, then so be it. He said what he had to say,
without the flourishes of words that would have softened it for a tribesman.
“I’ve come to ask for your daughter.”

Sarama’s brows went up at that, but she spoke words that, as
near as Agni could tell, were the right ones. The Mother responded only a lithe
less briefly. “Really? Which daughter? And why?”

“Your eldest daughter,” Agni answered, “to be my wife.”

“Wife,” said the Mother, using the word Agni had used, as
Sarama had also. There was no such word in her language, it seemed. “That is—a
kind of servant, yes?”

Sarama was choosing not to explain. She left that burden on
Agni. “It is a woman who shares a man’s bed, bears his sons, looks after his
tent.”

“Ah,” said the Mother. “Here, a man does those things,
except for the bearing of children; but he may raise such of those as a woman
has. Is that what you would call him, then? A wife?”

“A wife is a woman,” Agni said. “A man is her lord—her
husband. He protects her and shelters her from harm. She honors and obeys him.”

“I think,” said the Mother, “that a wife would be a rather
distressing thing to be. And you are asking me to give you my heir for such an
office?”

Here, thought Agni. Here was the heart of it. “Among my
people,” he said carefully, “when a tribe is conquered by another, the
conquering king takes the highest-ranked daughter of the fallen king, and makes
her his wife. That seals the conquest and marks the joining of tribes.”

“He chooses the fallen king’s heir.” The Mother pondered
that. “A man choosing a woman. That is against nature.”

“Not among my people,” Agni said. “Have you no such custom
here?”

“We don’t conquer.” That was Tilia, breaking in in words
that Agni could understand. The rest were in her own language, too fast almost
for Sarama to follow, but follow Sarama did. She seemed to be taking a grim
pleasure in it. “What makes you think I could possibly want to be your house-servant?
I am the heir of Three Birds. I will be Mother here when my time comes. How do
you dare to dream that you can choose me?"

“Because,” Agni answered sweetly, “I conquered you.”

“You were given what you thought to take.” Tilia had risen
from her seat and come to face him, bristling. “I say no,” she said, again in
the language of the tribes. “I say no, and no again. I will not choose you.”

“But I choose you,” Agni said. He turned again toward the
Mother. “I am thinking,” he said, “that for whatever reason, and by your Lady’s
will, you gave this city to me. I take it as the gift it is, but it has no love
for me, and no inclination to do as I bid it. Your daughter now, your heir, is
all that I am not. She can preserve the peace, speak to the people, guide me in
ruling them as a wise king rules. Without her I’ll do what I must, but if that
is to subdue this city by force, then that I’ll do. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” the Mother said. “You ask me to give a thing
that is not mine to give, for a purpose that few will see.”

“And yet,” said Agni, “you do have a thing called marriage.
The Great Marriage. Yes?”

He heard a sharp intake of breath. Tilia’s, perhaps. The
Mother was very still. “That is for gods,” she said, “and the children of
gods.”

“Kings among the tribes,” he said, “are reckoned children of
the gods.”

“But not by us,” said the Mother.

“Now that I am here,” Agni said gently, “you will have to
change your reckoning. There are new gods in your country. New men. New ways of
seeing the world.”

She was silent. It was Tilia who said, “I don’t want to see
the world differently. Why do you want me? What do you hope to gain by it?”

“Kingship in truth,” he answered promptly, once Sarama had
given the words to him.

“It would serve us well to refuse,” Tilia said.

“No,” said Agni. “You don’t know what conquest is. Not
really. You don’t want to know. If you do this, you’ll be safe from it.”

“We are already conquered,” Tilia said bitterly. “I don’t
wish to be any more vanquished than I am.”

“And yet you will be, if you aren’t wise.”

“I don’t want to be wise,” said Tilia. “I don’t want to be a
wife.” She put such a twist in the word that Agni could taste the sourness of
it.

“It needn’t be so ill,” he said. “After all, what becomes of
a woman in the Great Marriage?”

“The woman is Mother of mothers,” the Mother said before
Tilia could answer.

“And the man?” Agni asked.

“He’s reckoned greatly wise, and the Lady favors him.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s great honor,” Tilia said. “He’s looked up to as if
he were a woman.”

Sarama was enjoying this much too much. Agni leveled a glare
on her. He said, “You mean he becomes an elder. He gains presence in the city.”

Tilia nodded—not gladly, but she did not appear to be one
who savored a lie.

“So you see,” Agni said. “This gives me rank that I lacked
before, and a voice among your people.”

“It profits you,” she said. “It does nothing for me.”

“It protects you from whatever comes after. More horsemen,”
said Agni. “There’s no escaping that. The westward gate is open. They will
come.”

“If they’re all like you, what does it matter? They’ll come,
we’ll give in to them, they’ll fancy themselves great conquerors, and we’ll go
on as we have before.”

“And every one who comes here,” said Agni, “supposing that
the war doesn’t run right over you as it undertakes to destroy me, will come
looking for you. It’s the custom. The conquering king takes the conquered
king’s daughter. Not all or even most will stop to ask. They’ll simply take.”

“They can’t do that,” said Tilia.

“They can do whatever they have in mind to do. They are
warriors. You are not.”

None of these people seemed able to understand such a thing,
even though Sarama seemed in sympathy with her brother for once. She spoke on
her own behalf, clear enough and simple enough for him to understand. “He’s
telling the truth. I don’t like it, either, but that doesn’t change it.”