The Horsemasters Read online

  “I am not a fool. I know how blind she is when it comes to the Chosen One.”

  The bitterness in Ronan’s voice was deep. Neihle understood, but it was dangerous. Ronan’s growing reputation among the initiates was dangerous also. Arika did not like it. Neihle frowned worriedly at the hawklike profile of his nephew and finally brought up the subject that was on his mind.

  “I have been thinking, Ronan, to take you with me to the Autumn Gathering this year to find you a wife.”

  “What?” Ronan swung around to face his uncle. His eyes were wide with surprise. “I do not understand you, Uncle,” he said.

  Neihle was not surprised by Ronan’s reaction. It was certainly Neihle’s place as the boy’s maternal uncle to make his marriage arrangements, and the boys of the Red Deer often left their home when they wed, but Ronan was still young for marriage. As he said now to Neihle, “It is not yet time for me to take a wife.”

  “Morna is young for her years, but you, sister’s son, are old for yours,” Neihle returned. “Nor are you the man ever to be happy living under Morna’s rule. Even though it seems you could certainly find a girl of the Red Deer to take you”—here Neihle smiled briefly, then sobered—”I have been thinking it would be well for you to consider making your home in another tribe.”

  Ronan’s expressionless mask was not, after all, impenetrable, and Neihle saw the flash of hurt. “It is not that I wish to lose you,” the older man said gently. “It is that…I fear for you in this tribe, Ronan.”

  Now Ronan looked astonished. “Fear for me? Why should you fear for me, Uncle?”

  Neihle shrugged and answered obliquely, “I have long thought you would be happier in a tribe that followed the Way of Sky God.”

  Ronan’s astonished expression faded, and he looked away.

  “I know you listen to stories of such tribes from the men who were born to them,” Neihle said. “I have seen your face when Midac tells tales of the Tribe of the Horse and Azur tells tales of the Tribe of the Buffalo.”

  Ronan did not answer.

  “Of all the tribes of the Kindred, only the Tribe of the Red Deer yet follows the Way of the Mother,” Neihle said. “They follow the Mother in other places, this I know from the traders, but among the Kindred it is only the Tribe of the Red Deer. That is why Arika is so careful to keep us pure, Ronan. That is why when a young man marries into another tribe, she will not allow him to return here. She does not want the ways of Sky God creeping in.” Neihle put his hand on his nephew’s arm. “If I have noticed how you listen to the tales of Sky God, then be sure that she has noticed also.”

  Ronan’s chin came up. “Noticed me? The Mistress? You are thinking of someone else, Uncle.”

  Neihle winced, the bitterness in that young voice was so raw. “She knows everything about you, Ronan,” he answered. “She knows you are becoming a leader among the boys. She knows the girls are hot to lie with you. She knows you are interested in the Way of Sky God. And even if she never shows it, she knows you are her son.”

  Neihle’s hand on Ronan’s arm tightened. “All of these things are dangerous, sister’s son. You already have cause to know how ruthless the Mistress can be. If she thinks you may be a threat to her rule…”

  “A threat to her rule,” Ronan repeated. Once more he looked astonished. “Can Arika really imagine that?”

  “I think so,” said Neihle. The two men stood there, facing each other under the darkening sky. “That is why I wish to take you to the Autumn Gathering to find a wife. I wish you would consider it.”

  There was a long silence. Then Ronan answered, “Perhaps I will, one day. But not this year, Uncle.”

  Neihle dropped his hand. Trying to throw off his sense of foreboding, he made himself say humorously, “You are having too good a time, I see.”

  Ronan’s dark face lit with its irresistible smile. “Sa,” he said. “I am.”

  * * * *

  The summer weather faded, and Leaf Fall Moon rose in the night sky. In the highest passes of the mountains, snow fell. The deer began their annual trek back to the lower-altitude grazing around the Greatfish River, followed by the hunters of the Tribe of the Red Deer.

  As Leaf Fall Moon waned, preparations began for the great semi-annual fertility rite of the tribe, Winter Fires.

  It would be the first Fires ceremony Ronan had ever attended, and he looked forward to it with enthusiasm. Not even the news that his half-sister Morna was to make the Sacred Marriage this year could dim his anticipation.

  The three girls who had been initiated since Spring Fires were awaiting the coming ceremony with scarcely less anticipation than Ronan. A girl of the Red Deer tribe was not introduced to sex at her initiation rite as was a boy. The girls waited until the next ceremony of the Fires, when the pounding drums and unrestrained dancing brought heat to the blood and fire to the loins. Then they had their first mating, and the pain was muted by the sweet urgency of the need.

  Morna had been pleased when Arika told her she would be the one to make the Sacred Marriage this year. According to ritual, at each Fires the Goddess mated with the god and their joining was what brought fertility to the tribe and to the herds the tribe depended upon for survival. The Goddess’s role was usually taken by the Mistress, but this year the role would be played by the Mistress’s daughter.

  “It makes for a powerful ritual when the Goddess is played by a maiden,” Arika explained to Morna. “That is why I will allow you to make the Sacred Marriage this year, at your first mating.” The Mistress smiled at Morna’s expression. “You must name the man, my daughter. It is always the prerogative of the Goddess to name the man who will play the god.”

  Morna said, “I know who would be named if the choice were offered to any other of the Red Deer girls. I am thinking it is a pity that Ronan is my brother.”

  Arika stared in appalled silence at her daughter’s faintly flushed cheeks and parted lips. Morna seemed utterly unaware of the consternation her words had produced in her mother.

  “Do not ever say such a thing to me again,” Arika said in an unusually harsh voice.

  Finally Morna realized that her words had upset Arika. “It is not my fault if I do not think of him as a brother,” she said defensively. “After all, we have never lived together in one family as brothers and sisters normally do.”

  Arika was very pale. “Nevertheless, the blood tie is there.” She drew a long, calming breath. “Remember, you are not just any girl, Morna. You are the Chosen One of the tribe. You must think always of the tribe, my daughter, and of what is good for the tribe. Not of yourself.”

  Morna said sulkily, “Sa, Mother. So you are always telling me.”

  Arika’s beautiful mouth set in a grim line. “You need not name the man right now. There is time for you to think about your choice.”

  Morna tilted her head a little and ran her eyes speculatively up and down Arika’s figure. “I hope I am a better breeder than you, Mother,” she said. “How many Sacred Marriages did you make before you bore Ronan?”

  “Many,” Arika said. Her face was like stone. “I also hope that your womb is more fertile than was mine.”

  “Was?” Morna’s perfectly arched brows rose.

  She could be clever enough when her interest was involved, Arika thought heavily as she looked into her daughter’s lovely face. The problem with Morna was that her interest seemed always limited to herself.

  “My moon blood still flows if that is what you mean,” Arika answered quietly. “But I do not think that I will ever bear another child.”

  Morna wound the tip of her long red-gold braid around her forefinger. She looked up at Arika from under her lashes. “Then perhaps it will fall to me to make the Sacred Marriage from now on,” she said.

  The line of the Mistress’s mouth became even grimmer, “I will only give over the ritual to you, Morna, if I am convinced you understand what the responsibility of playing the Goddess entails.”

  Morna’s lips curled in an ench
anting smile. She was so beautiful, Arika thought despairingly. Much more beautiful than Nel. Surely the Mother meant Morna to be her Chosen One…

  “When the responsibility is so pleasant, Mother,” Morna was saying, “you can be sure that I will undertake it willingly.”

  “I am not talking about the pleasure of the mating,” Arika snapped.

  “I know. I know.” Morna wrinkled her small straight nose. “I must think of the tribe. I know that, Mother. How could I not know it when you are always telling me?”

  “When you choose the man,” Arika said shortly, “come to me.”

  “Sa.” Once more came that curling smile. “I will.”

  Arika sighed.

  Chapter Three

  In the Tribe of the Red Deer the winter was never as carefree a time as the summer, but this particular winter proved full of discontent for Ronan. Neihle had voiced out loud thoughts that Ronan had never quite dared to consider, and now they clamored in his mind. As a result, his distaste for Morna became ever more adamant, and more serious.

  Ronan was well acquainted with his sister. In the Tribe of the Red Deer, the tie between brother and sister, children of the same womb, was considered closer even than the tie between husband and wife. It was a woman’s brother who was responsible for instructing her sons in the skills of hunting and for guiding him through the rites of initiation into manhood. Husbands might come and go, the women of the Red Deer always said, but your brother is your brother forever.

  This belief held true for the Mistress of the tribe as well; certainly the man who had always been closest to Arika was her brother, Neihle. So it was that no one in the tribe had found it odd when the child Morna began to seek out the company of her brother, Ronan. Even though Arika had disowned her son, still the idea of the brother-sister blood bond was so strong in the tribe that Morna had managed to spend many more hours with Ronan than anyone had felt it necessary to report to Arika.

  For many years Ronan had made an effort to be agreeable to his sister. He understood the sacredness of the sibling bond, and he was intuitive enough to realize that he resented Morna for being their mother’s favored child. “It is not Morna’s fault she is who she is” was a phrase he had repeated to himself like a charm during all the years of their childhood. It was only within the last few years that he had allowed himself to admit that his dislike of Morna was based on more than mere jealousy.

  She had no touch of the Goddess about her. She was selfish, and shallow, and, once her sexuality had been tapped, thoughtlessly promiscuous. During the course of the winter Ronan came to the conclusion that she would make a disastrous leader for the tribe.

  Ronan might hate his mother, but never, during all the years of his growing up, had he thought to question her right to rule. The matriarchy of the Tribe of the Red Deer was well-established and, in general, functioned beautifully. “No one has a greater care for her children than a mother does,” Neihle had once explained to Ronan when the boy had first questioned him about other tribes that followed a male chief. “Look at the animals,” Neihle had said. “Is there anywhere among them a mother who will not fight to the death to protect her young? No father will do that for his offspring; only a mother. That is why we follow the Way of Earth Mother in this tribe, Ronan. And to us, the Mistress is her voice, is the Goddess-on-Earth.”

  It was a great responsibility to be the Goddess-on-Earth, and during the time of that long, bitter winter, Ronan watched his sister and judged her lacking.

  It was an accepted fact in the tribe that the Mistress did not tie herself to one man, that she was sexually free. As the Mother was the Giver of Life to the World, so was the Mistress the fount of life to the tribe. Her sexuality was a great and holy thing, demonstrated most powerfully during the two fertility rites of Winter and Spring Fires. There had never been any sexual jealousy manifested among the men of the tribe in regard to the Mistress. It was simply unthinkable.

  During that winter, however, it became evident to Ronan that Morna had no feeling for the sacredness of her sexuality to the tribe. Arika had always understood that, while in one way the Mistress was freer than other women, in most ways she was less free. Clearly, Morna did not understand that. Freed at last from the restrictions of maidenhood, Morna went from boy to boy, from married man to married man, encouraging rivalries and then laughing at the often angry results.

  She was not fit to lead the tribe, Ronan thought. In anger, in bitterness, in defiance, he thought it. She would never be fit to head the tribe.

  For the first time in his life, Ronan seriously began to consider the possibility that one day a man might lead the Tribe of the Red Deer. In Neihle’s anxiety to remove his nephew from harm’s way, he had planted the seed of an idea that, over the course of many long cold winter nights, put down roots in Ronan’s mind.

  Neihle had said that the Mistress feared her son. Surely, Ronan thought, Arika would not harbor such a fear without just cause. Did Arika see what he saw, that Morna was unfit to take her mother’s place? Did she fear that perhaps one day the tribe would turn from the daughter to the son?

  These were the thoughts occupying Ronan’s mind one spring day when he was standing alone at a secluded spot along the Greatfish River a short way downstream from the tribe’s homesite. Two of the older initiates had recently gone off to the local Spring Gathering with their fathers and had not come back. As with so many of the boys of the Red Deer, they had found wives in neighboring tribes and gone to live with their wives’ kin. It was the way things were done in the tribe; it was the way things had always been done. The boys, not the girls, left their maternal home when they married.

  Ronan did not want to leave his home or his tribe. The very thought made him scowl, and to relieve his feelings he picked up a handful of stones and began to throw them forcefully, one after the other, into the rushing water of the flooded river.

  “Ronan.” It was a feminine voice. He looked over his shoulder and saw Cala approaching. She smiled at him. “You have been so occupied of late that I have scarcely seen you.”

  He threw the last stone all the way across to the opposite bank, then turned to face her. “It is Ibex Moon,” he said. “A good time for hunting.” In fact, the sight of Morna’s blatant promiscuity had so disgusted Ronan that he had kept away from all girls for a good part of the winter.

  Cala nodded. “I have been hunting with the girls,” she said. She halted beside him, standing very close.

  He turned back to the water. Cala and he had lain together at Winter Fires last year. He had been her first boy, and he liked her. There was a gentleness about her that reminded him of Nel.

  “Ronan,” she said softly. Now he could feel her leaning against him, could feel the curve of her hip, the length of her thigh. He thought of what lay between those thighs, and he reached an arm around her under her reindeer fur vest, resting his hand upon her breast. Through the deerskin shirt he could feel her nipple stand up against his palm.

  The spring sun was delightfully warm. He was a fool to let Morna spoil his fun, he thought. “Come,” he said into Cala’s pretty pink ear. “Let’s go into the woods.”

  Linked together, the boy and girl made their way into the clump of trees that screened this part of the river from the valley floor.

  * * * *

  They parted within the half-hour, Cala returning home while Ronan remained where he was.

  Perhaps he could marry Cala, he thought. Their blood lines were not within the forbidden degree of closeness, and if he married her he would not have to leave the tribe.

  He heard movement behind him and spun around, frowning. He did not want any more company. His brow smoothed out when he saw who it was. “Nel. What are you doing here?”

  She came to sit beside him on the bank, first plunking the basket she had been carrying down under a tree. Nigak bestowed his usual lavish greeting, licking Ronan’s face and sniffing him all over. Ronan scratched the wolf’s ruff and looked at Nel. “I have been gath
ering herbs for the Old Woman,” she answered. “We are going to make some medicines tomorrow.”

  He smiled at her and let Nigak continue to sniff him.

  “I passed Cala on the path,” she said. Nigak finally finished with Ronan and went to curl up beside Nel. She reached out to smooth the silvery fur between the wolf’s ears. Her voice was muffled. “Did you lie with her?”

  He was staring at her averted face. “Sa.” He sounded preoccupied. “What is that bruise on your cheek?”

  She shrugged and still did not look at him. He reached out and took her chin in his hand, turning her face so he could see it more clearly. “How did you get it?” His voice was no longer preoccupied but sharp and authoritative.

  Her lids were lowered so he could not see into her eyes. “My stepmother was angry with me. It is nothing, Ronan. Truly.”

  There was a tense silence. Then Ronan said, “I will deal with Olma for you.”

  “Na!” She pulled her chin away from his hold. “You will only make it worse if you interfere. I have to live with her. Until I am old enough to marry, there is nowhere else for me to go. It is best for me to try to get along with her, Ronan. Believe me.”

  He shook his head. “There are too many years before you can marry, Nel.”

  “Not so many. I have two handfuls of years already, remember. “ She smoothed one of Nigak’s ears and added gruffly, “Would you wait for me, Ronan, or is three years too long?”

  “Wait for you?” Ronan repeated blankly. His braid had been loosened in his encounter with Cala, and his black hair was blowing in the breeze from the river. “What are you thinking of, minnow? You and I cannot marry—we are hearth-cousins.”

  “Na,” Nel said, “we are not. I asked the Old Woman, Ronan. You were hearth-cousins with my mother. You and I are marriageable.”

  He put up a hand to push the hair from his face. “Marriageable?” Silence fell. Then he said slowly, “Is it so?”

  She nodded.

  “I had not considered that.” His voice was thoughtful.

  She leaned toward him eagerly. “Would you wait for me, Ronan? I promise to grow up very fast.”