We went through the gate, which was iron, and obviously a separate thing from the poles. Children and goats stared at us. The caravan began to split up. Soon, only Darak and a captain or two remained with the chiefs, and I remained with them also, because of Asutoo. We toured the krarl and the large horse pens at the back. This was actually disguised business dealing, for a lot of Barak’s sale here would be barter. We needed horses, particularly since Kee-ool, and these were very fine, all bronzes and chestnuts, and mostly unbroken. Darak grinned, and pointed out the largest of a bunch of females, and the worst tempered.
“That one is Sarroka-Devil Mare,” the star chief said.
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“She is bred virgin, and hates the feel of any male on her back, horse or man.”
I knew Darak would not resist that. He must conquer anything that opposed him. He dismounted, and the mare rolled her eyes and showed her teeth, sensing his intention.
The chief nodded. Two warriors ran around the pen, and opened a little gate into the fenced pasture behind. They called her name, and held out tidbits. It was easy enough to see they had been ready for Barak’s interest. Sarroka would not take the stuff from their hands. They put it down for her, got the gate shut, and vaulted out.
“Take her now, Darak,” the chief said. “You will never get near her once she’s done eating.”
Darak unlaced the black merchant’s tunic, and hung it carefully on his saddle. His brown back rippled disdainful muscle. He went lightly over the fencing, and waited till the mare was finished and had lifted her head. He called her then, and she turned and snarled back her lips. Darak laughed softly, excited by the challenge of her. She stamped and whinnied, then flung around and ran. Darak ran too, so fast he was beside her. As she turned the corner of the pasture field, slowing a little, he caught her by her brassy blowing mane, set the ball of his right foot against her, and swung the inner left leg over, using her flank as a pivot. It was a incredible trick, and very dangerous, but it got him on her back. Darak’s men and even some of the warriors called out their applause, but the mare was mad. She threw herself up and sideways, bucked and kicked her heels, and screamed her furious fear. She could not shift him. He held her around the neck, constricting her great windpipe with his arm. It hampered her breathing, and tired her quicker. Round and round she ran, flagging, like a great bronze wheel running down.
Finally, she was still. Her head drooped and she streamed sweat. Darak slid from her easily. He led her back across the pasture and picked up a sweetmeat still lying in the grass. He held it to her, and she shook her head and would not accept it. Darak let fall the sweet, and climbed out. He, too, glistened sweat, his body metallic. He looked uniquely handsome and very angry, everything about him highlighted by the low sun.
“Well,” he said, “I’ve saved your men some trouble.”
“Sarroka must be yours,” the chief said.
“My thanks, but I don’t want her.”
The chief shrugged.
I hated Darak. He had broken her for the sake of his van-
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ity, and now, because she did not love him for it, he abandoned her. If he had let her alone, perhaps these warriors might have given her up and let her free again.
The sun sank, and the feast began.
We sat around the fire ring on hide cushions, the six chiefs and their sons, Darak and his captains, and I. Over our heads a canopy drooped its scarlet wings. Women in black robes and young boys served out food and drink. It is the tribal way to hem a boy in with mother and sisters till he is sick of them, and runs off to kill a plains wolf in winter, or catch a wild horse, or go to fight, if there is a war, and so prove himself a man. The women all wore the shireen, but the eyepieces were wider than mine, and often embroidered or beaded. They stared nervously at me, and slipped away to be replaced by others with the next course, all equally curious. The food was plentiful and smelled spicy, but the warriors did not touch the roast meat. The kill had been for Darak and his men only. I ate nothing except a bit of the formal bread they break before each meal, which must be taken if one is a friend. I drank a little of their wine, but that was all. They respected my frugality. Their warriors would fast, too, their chief said, before a battle. I was used to the pains and cramps that came, and they did not trouble me much.
The feast ended, but the drinking went on. They passed around cups of an alcohol made from goat’s milk mixed with the bark of some tree. Darak did not take much of this, but the chiefs and their men drank deep.
The conversation began to move around to bargaining talk after that. I was not very interested in it, it was such a game, the chiefs and Darak beating each other back through impossible conditions to their very last defenses, which were, in fact, what they had intended to settle on all the time. In the end, it was mainly knives they wanted, and Darak achieved horses and a cloth their women made for which there was a demand in the towns. Some money passed hands also, and little bags of dull red counters that were, I think, chips of unpolished precious stones, possibly garnets.
I felt exhausted by this time. The fumes of the wine I had not even drunk had got into my head, my eyes smarted from the fire. Through the smoke I saw seven or eight girls come to dance for us. They wore white shireens, but although their faces were covered, their bodies were almost naked. A thin leather strap passed around their backs, under their arms, to fasten above their breasts with a gold buckle. From these
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straps hung tassels of white wool, which hid them occasionally but not often. There was a similar arrangement around their hips, and although the tassels were more numerous, and some of them red or blue, they were equally unsuccessful in the pursuit of modesty. Their bodies were lean and brown like their men’s, but they were beautiful for all that.
The chief was courteously asking Darak to choose a woman, and, once Darak had chosen, the other bandits picked what they wanted. Perhaps I should not have been surprised when the chief leaned toward me.
“And you, also, warrior. Which girl for your sleeping place in the krarl?”
I had not realized this, too, was a custom among their woman fighters. After a second, I said to him in the tribal tongue, “You honor me, my father, but though I will fight as a man, I am still woman enough that I do not lie with women. Therefore only do I refuse your gracious gift.”
He made a movement with his hand which meant, “That is fair,” and he said, “Choose, then, a warrior for your pleasure. Such a woman as yourself is held highly in the kraris. No man but will be glad.”
I saw Darak’s face across the smoky glare break into a hard smile. He wanted me bewildered by the situation, stuttering my refusal which he would then have to smooth over with the chief, explaining my basic weak feminine nervousness.
What a stranger and an enemy I had in this man I seemed to love.
I bowed to the chief. I turned and put my hand on Asutoo’s broad naked shoulder. I felt his flesh quicken under my fingers, and was thankful for it.
The chief grinned and nodded several times.
“A good choice. Had I been younger you might have put your hand on me.”
“I would not dare to set my hope so high,” I said.
The ritual was successfully completed.
I would not let myself look back at Darak’s face.
The feast broke up soon after. Boys with torches came to show us our separate tents. I thought Darak started to move after me; I heard a little uneasy sound, and some of the warriors had got in his way. I did not look back as I walked with Asutoo behind the golden tongue of light.
The tent was small but adequate. We ducked inside. There were rugs on the floor, and a stand in which the boy stuck the
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torch, and then went out. I looked at Asutoo. His face was slightly flushed, his eyes bright. He was a little drunk, but not dangerously so, and he did not seem aggrieved.