White Mare's Daughter (58 page)

Which left Agni with the boy. Agni looked him up and down.

He returned the favor. He was not afraid. He looked about
him with bright-eyed interest, though his eye kept returning to Agni as if
captivated.

Agni did not know what there was to marvel at. If the boy’s
dark-haired people had never seen a redheaded or light-eyed man before, still
by now he would have seen his fill of them: Muti was as red as the metal called
copper, and his brothers were sandy-fair, and they were all blue-eyed. Agni in
moonlight should look almost as dark as a man of this country.

There was no telling what the boy was thinking, and no
asking him till someone should come who had some knowledge of his language.
Agni turned to Muti. “Come into the tent. No, not there! This way.”

Muti’s eyebrows went up, but he did not argue when Agni led
him in under the tent-wall, creeping in the back as Agni had been used to creep
in to visit Rudira.

No, not that thought. Agni knocked it down and set his foot
on it.

He emerged into the lamplit dimness of the tent. It was
close quarters with Muti and the boy, but Agni was not minded just yet to show
him to the elders round the fire.

The boy was as interested in the tent as in everything else,
and as fearless. He sat where Agni pointed, tucked up his feet and smiled as if
he were a guest in a friend’s tent.

“Now,” Agni said to Muti, “tell me where you found him.”

Muti was never as comfortable as the boy. He squatted on his
heels as if ready to leap and bolt, and said, “He was herding goats on a hill
half a day’s walk from here. We captured him and brought him back.”

“Without resistance?” Agni asked.

“None at all,” said Muti. “He walked right up to us. We were
on foot, there. When he saw our horses he seemed taken aback, but he didn’t
give us any trouble.”

“No war,” Agni murmured. “No fear.” He had never imagined
that one might lead to the other. If men did not kill men, if there were no
warriors, no raids, no tribe doing battle with tribe, then what would any man
be afraid of?

Wolves, maybe. Lions. Winter. But not other men, even
strangers.

Not to be afraid of strangers. It was like a story from the
gods’ country, from a place where there was no suffering.

And Agni might be maundering, building whole worlds on a
mind too simple to know fear. He brought himself back into the world, saw that
the boy was fed—venison and mead he seemed to know, and find good.

He was not trying to escape, did not try to follow Muti when
Muti went to fetch food and drink for him. He seemed as content as a tamed
puppy or a hand-raised foal to stay where he was put.

Muti’s brother did not come back. Agni felt sleep creeping
up on him. The boy was sitting on his sleeping-roll. He sighed, shrugged,
wrapped his arms about himself and leaned lightly against the tent-wall and let
himself drift as he did in the saddle, upright but dreaming.

oOo

When he opened his eyes again, people were whispering. He
blinked, and squinted. Light dazzled him: morning light through the flap of the
tent, and a shadow athwart it. Muti’s voice said, “He’s asleep. Can you wait?”

“I’m awake,” Agni said. As his eyes grew used to the light,
he saw the boy curled on the bed, sound asleep, and Muti with his brother,
staring, apparently struck dumb.

“Well?” Agni asked. “Did you find someone who understands this
language?”

Muti’s brother nodded, but doubtfully. “Lord Tillu says he
understands the trader’s argot. He’s not sure if it will do, but he’s willing
to try.”

“I hope you told him to let me be the judge of that,” Agni
said.

Muti’s brother rolled his eyes. “That I did, though he
didn’t take it very kindly. He’s outside. Shall I send him in?”

“No,” Agni said. “I’ll come out. Bid him wait. And be
polite.”

Muti’s brother looked a little affronted, but he went to do
Agni’s bidding.

Most interesting, Agni thought. He had expected some
tribesman or hanger-on, or maybe a stray woodman. That Tillu should offer
himself for this office—he was ambitious, was Tillu. Which might not be
altogether a bad thing.

Agni levered himself to his feet. He was stiff with sitting
nightlong.

He stretched every muscle, groaning a little, catching the
boy’s glance in the middle of it. The boy was awake and upright, and his eyes
were wide.

Agni began to wonder, out of nowhere in particular, whether
this was a boy at all. Moonlight softened a face, but daylight sharpened all
its edges. This one seemed to have none. It was a smooth rounded face, pretty
in its way, if one inclined toward blunt nose and full cheeks.

A girl alone, herding goats within reach of an army?

But if they knew no war, then maybe they knew no bands of
marauders. No sudden attacks. No rape. A girl might be safe with her goats in
the hillside, at least from men. Wolves and lions would not care what or who
she was.

Muti and his brother were waiting. With a last glance at the
boy—girl?— Agni stepped out into the full light of morning.

His campfire was ashes, all but a few embers over which
Taditi crouched, coaxing them into flame. Men were out and about, but Agni saw
no elders. They would all be sleeping off the mead and the kumiss.

Tillu was sitting outside by the campfire, eating a bowl of
something savory. It proved, when Taditi handed Agni a bowl of it, to be a stew
of dried meat and herbs. Agni settled in comfort beside the western tribesman,
and they ate for a while in amity.

But the foreigner was waiting inside the tent, and he—or
more likely she—weighed heavy on Agni’s mind. He said rather abruptly, “You
think you speak the language of this country.”

Tillu did not appear to take offense. He licked the bowl
clean and laid it politely down in front of him, and bowed to Taditi.

Taditi sniffed and took the bowl away. Still with glinting
eyes as if she greatly amused him, he said to Agni, “I think I may have a few
words, if the tongue the traders speak is like the one they speak here.”

“There is that,” Agni said. “Well then; you’re welcome to
try. Come into the tent.”

Tillu nodded amiably and rose, and at Agni’s gesture
preceded him back into the dimness.

The girl—Agni was sure of that, entering behind Tillu,
seeing the face anew—was sitting where he had left her, head cocked, alert but
quiet. Her eyes fixed on Tillu in a kind of panicked fascination. Agni hissed at
himself for not thinking of what a woman might make of that face with its great
hideous scar.

She did not shriek, at least, or cower, though her glance
leaped to Agni and held, as if she took some pleasure or some comfort in his
presence. If nothing else, she would find him prettier to look at.

“Tell her,” Agni said, keeping his voice gentle lest he
alarm her further, “that we are men of the east, and we’ve heard of her
country, and have come to see it for ourselves.”

Tillu frowned as if in concentration. Then he spoke a few
words, haltingly.

The girl appeared to listen, but Agni could not tell if she
understood. Nor did she answer.

Tillu spoke again. This time she must have made some sense
of it: her lips twitched. She spoke briefly, with an intonation that indicated
she was speaking to a child, and not an intelligent one, either.

Tillu’s brows went up. “She says,” the man said, “that now
you see this country, you can go home.”

Agni laughed, more with relief than with mirth; because
after all here was someone who could speak to this stranger. “I don’t think
so,” he said. “Yet. Ask her if her people are near, and would they be
hospitable to guests? We’ve need of food and such.”

The glance Tillu shot him asked if he had gone out of his
mind. Was this not a war?

Agni met it with a bland stare. Tillu sighed but chose
visibly not to argue.

He spoke, this time with more confidence and fewer
hesitations. The girl answered. He said, “She says her people are where her
people are, and you’re welcome to visit their markets.”

“I would like that,” Agni said. “She’ll guide us. Tell her.”

She was duly told; and she nodded, as an innocent will,
wide-eyed, trusting him.

Agni smiled at her. She smiled back. She was very pretty,
once one grew accustomed to round cheeks and round eyes. She was not shy,
either, nor modest; she carried herself like a boy.

“Do you have a name?” Agni asked her through Tillu.

She nodded broadly, with a flicker of laughter. “Maya,” she
said.

“Maya,” Agni said. She favored him with a broad smile.

“We’ll go,” he said, “to your market.”

“Now?” Tillu asked on his own account, with a touch of
incredulity.

“Now,” said Agni. “When better?”

Tillu shrugged as if say that it was Agni’s foolishness and
he had no part of it, and spoke to the girl.

She looked not at all dismayed. Her glance at Agni was
bright and bold. She slipped past him out of the tent, with a word that must
have meant “Come.”

Led by the girl Maya, Agni set out for the gathering place
of her people—the city, as he had been told it was called. Rather a mob
followed them. Tillu of course, because he was Agni’s voice in this place.
Patir and Rahim were not to be left behind, nor was Gauan, and they brought
hangers-on of various sorts.

There must have been three dozen of them, all mounted, for
what man would be caught afoot when he could ride? And of course they were all
armed, for who went abroad without sword and spear, bow and shield?

They were a warlike company, then, and none too sedate. Maya
was quick on her feet, but once they had left the camp behind, Agni halted and
caught her eye, and beckoned.

She blanched, maybe, but she was a bold creature. She took
his hand and made herself light and scrambled up behind him.

Mitani was wary but quiet. She had the wits to sit still and
not cling too tightly, though Agni could feel the tension in her. It made her
quiver just perceptibly, and made Mitani switch his tail and snort.

Mitani carried her nonetheless, and she relaxed slowly. She
pointed the way when Agni hesitated, otherwise leaned lightly against him.

He was aware of her through the coat that she wore, and his
own leather tunic: the shape of her body, the small round breasts pressing into
his back. As they rode onward, her hand began to work mischief. It crept under
his tunic, found the string that bound his trousers, tugged it loose and darted
beneath.

He clapped his hand over hers. Her laughter bubbled against
his back.

Even Rudira had never been so bold—no, not even when they
were private together. And he was riding at the head of a middling large
war-party, with every eye on him, and laughter enough if any knew what this
impudent child was doing.

Agni extricated her hand from his clothes and pressed it
firmly against his middle, where the belt made a wall between her mischief and
his skin.

She sighed gustily and appeared to surrender, but Agni was
twinborn with Sarama. He had learned never to trust a woman with a mind of her
own.

To be sure, as they rode up a long hill, she began to nibble
his ear. Little gusts of laughter tickled him between the sharp nips, a mix of
pain and pleasure that made him want to howl. He must not think of what she was
making him think of. He must not.

He had been long seasons without a woman. None had offered
herself among the tribes, nor had he been offered any. The consolation that
some took on long marches or in war, to turn to one another, was not one that
Agni had ever found pleasing.

Here was a woman pressed close to him for all to see,
teasing and tormenting him with hands that were far too clever for so young a
child as she seemed to be. Denied the swift road to his manly parts, she took
the long way round across his back and shoulders. She took it long indeed, and
she took it slow, and she found the spot along his spine that made him shiver,
and the one across his ribs that made him twitch and curse.

She was mad, he decided. What sane woman would do such a
thing in front of three dozen men? And laugh while she did it?

When they reached the hill’s summit, high up against the
sky, she had a little mercy. She slid from Mitani’s back to stand in the high
grass and spread her arms to all before her.

“My country,” Tillu said for her. “My people.”

Agni had already guessed that was what she had said. If he
turned and looked behind, he saw a rolling green country, empty of habitation,
lapping up against the forest’s knees. But in front of him down the long slope
was pure strangeness: a skein of what looked like camps, but camps grown vast
and set in wood and stone. Each wore a girdle of patchwork green and brown,
rings of fields where the fruits of the earth must grow at man’s will and not
simply at the will of the gods.

Or so Tillu said. Agni could see no pressing reason to
disbelieve him.

It was a great marvel and a strangeness, and more than
strange. There were so many of these cities. They strung like beads along the
river, and danced in their circles on the hilltops and in the wooded valleys.

Things moved on the river: boats, Tillu said, using a word
that Maya had spoken. They were built of wood and of hollowed trees, some with
tents pitched on them, and people sat or stood in them and drove them with
poles and oars—another word for which Agni had had no meaning before, nor had
much now; but when he came to the river he would see. And there were people on
roads between the cities, too, on paths beaten down by the passage of countless
feet. More people than Agni had known were in the world.

“This is only an outland country,” Maya said through Tillu.
“There are more people west of here, and much greater cities.”

Agni sucked in his breath and did his best not to look amazed.
She might be lying, to strike him with fear and awe. But he thought not. She
was too calm about it, not furtive at all as people were when they lied.