Daughter of Lir (40 page)

“That will do,” Rhian said, “and I thank you.”

He bowed to her, lower maybe than he strictly needed, but
there seemed to be no mockery in it. “The mare chose well,” he said. “That
comforts me.”

“We all need comfort in these days,” she said.

Rhian wanted a man that night—the first night in a long
while that she had hungered for the warmth of another body in her bed, and the
comfort of arms about her. There were no few men both young and not so young
who indicated that they would have been pleased to answer her summons. But when
night had fallen, when the daymeal was eaten and the wine had gone round, the
bed she went to was none of theirs.

It was empty. Starlight shone through the open shutters. The
room was clean and rather bare, scented with herbs that a servant must have
scattered on the coverlets. She undressed, folded her clothes tidily, and shook
her hair out of its plait. The chest at the bed’s foot yielded a comb carved
out of white bone, and a knot of colored cords. She sat cross- legged on the
bed and began, with more patience than she usually had, to make order of her
heavy black mane.

She heard his tread long before he reached the room. He
walked lighter than men here, almost soundless, but the wooden floor of the
gallery had a faint echo to it. She was almost done with her combing, and all
but ready to begin plaiting. She knew that lamplight flattered her. He would
find nothing to object to, when he came in upon her.

She had her smile ready when his hand parted the curtain—unmistakable,
those long white fingers. His expression was as startled as she could have
asked for. His cheeks flushed scarlet.

She widened her smile. His face locked shut. He was angry,
she thought. Still. Like the king, he was proud; and he did not like to be
bested by anyone, even a woman.

She watched him consider turning on his heel and stalking
away. But he was as predictable as any other stallion. Pride kept him where he
was, glaring at her.

When he was angry, his eyes were clear green. She smiled
into them.

“I don’t want you,” he said.

She looked down at the part of him that said the exact
opposite, then back up into an even fiercer blush than before. “Come here,” she
said. She had no expectation that he would refuse. Particularly when she sat up
a little straighter and let him see how beautiful her breasts were.

He groaned as if in pain, but he came at her summons. She
took his hands when he was close enough, and drew him stiffly down. He dropped
to his knees with what must have been bruising force.

“Never lie to a goddess’ servant,” she said.

“I don’t
want
to
want you!” he burst out.

“Now that is truth,” she said. She slid forward till her
breasts were almost touching his breast. “But I want you. You’ve ruined me for
black-haired men.”

“Good,” he said nastily.

“And I?” she asked. “Have I spoiled your taste for
fair-haired women?”

“You’ve spoiled my taste for women at all.”

“So angry,” she said. “So young.”

She brushed his lips with hers, light as a breath of wind.
And again, just a little less light.

He moved so swiftly she had no time to react, gripped her
hard, kissed her till she gasped for breath. He drove her back and down, with
the full weight of him on her, and there he held her.

She regarded him without fear. That made him even angrier.
She thought he might strike her. In a way he did: driving his hard rod into
her, as if he would impale her.

She locked her legs about his middle. When he moved to pull
back, she gripped him fast. He was deep inside her, his anger so strong, so
hot, that it burned her to the very center.

She saw the horror as it struck him: what he had done, or
tried to do. It killed his anger. It would have killed his ardor, too, but that
flame was hers to tend. In his moment of defenselessness she dipped and rolled
till he lay on his back. She rode him like a fine red stallion.

She took her time about it. It had been too long since she
lay with him—far too long.

He, wise creature, surrendered at last, and gave himself up
to her. Then there was no anger, and no horror, and no despair, either. Only
the heat of the blood, and their hearts matching beat to beat.

She tasted the salt sweetness of him, drew in his scent of
musk and man and horses, and reveled in the ruddy splendor of his hair. It was
as thick as a horse’s tail, but softer by far, and bright as copper in the
lamplight, shot with streaks of bronze and gold.

Men’s release was always swift, not like a woman’s that
could go on and on. She held him just short of it, till he begged her to let
him go. Then at last she did, driving him deeper even than before, and holding
him while he spasmed, till his eyes rolled up in his head. He gasped like a man
who was dying.

But he was very much alive. She slid down, still holding him
in her, till they lay face to face, her arms about him, her thighs about his
hips. His eyes now were the deep green of leaves in the summer, soft and sated.

“Witch,” he breathed. “Daughter of witches.”

“We have been called that,” she said lightly. She ran
fingers down the line of his cheek, from smooth skin to prick of coppery
stubble, past his chin to his shoulder, till her palm came to rest over the
still-rapid beating of his heart. “Beautiful man,” she said. “Did you think you
could take me by force?”

“I tried,” he said. “I wanted to. Gods, I wanted to!”

“Long ago,” she said, “in the time of the dawn, a young man
of the horsemen took a woman of the Goddess’ people against her will. He did
not imagine that he had committed a sin. It was only what men did. But it was a
great crime against our people. He paid for it with his life.”

“So,” he said. “Do I die?”

“We still need you,” she said. “And we promised to teach you
of bronze.”

“But then,” he said, “I’ll be put to death.”

“No,” said Rhian.

“But—”

“Dear fool,” she said. “If you had truly meant to force me,
you would not be lying in my arms. You would be gelded or dead.”

He sucked in his breath. For so great a taker of heads, he
was remarkably easy to appall. He could not have heard such things from a woman
before: certainly not a woman who was lying in his bed.

“You couldn’t have forced me,” she said. “It’s not in you. I
took you because I wanted you, and because in your heart you wanted me.”

“I’ll never forgive you for what you did,” he said.

“Never is a long time,” she said.

He twisted away from her. She let him go. He went only as
far as the wall; he huddled there in such a knot of confusion that she came
near to pitying him.

“Come,” she said. “Can’t we declare truce?”

“Truce?” His face twisted. “What do you care for truce?
You’re the captor, I’m the captive. You can bind me to your will, and I will
serve you as you command. But never ask me to give you more.”

“If it were only your body I wanted,” she said, “there are a
hundred men in Lir who would be delighted to serve my pleasure. I want you,
prince. Not only your rod in me or your hands on me. Your heart, too.”

“You won’t have it,” he said through gritted teeth.

“I will win it,” she said.

“I will die first.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Shall we wager on it?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I will have it in the end.
And I will have you.”

“I will fight you.”

“Men always fight,” she said. “It’s how they are made. Women
always win, because they are made to win. Here we understand that. On the sea
of grass, people forget. They’re too far from the Goddess—from the knowledge of
what she is.”

“That knowledge will die,” he said. “Our gods will kill it.”

“The Goddess can’t die,” said Rhian. “She is above any gods
of men.”

She had silenced him. She stretched on her side, wriggling
till she was comfortable. She blocked his escape from the bed.

He had a strong fire of anger, and a worse one of confusion.
But under her eyes, little by little, his body surrendered. It was tired; he
had worked it hard. She watched him loose it into sleep.

It was true, she thought, what she had said to him. When she
looked at the men of her own people now, they seemed too broad, too dark, too
thickly furred with hair. She wanted slender and pale and smooth-skinned almost
as a child. But no child would be so tall or so strong. And where a man was
most a man—that was not a child’s, not at all.

Carefully she moved in toward him. He did not thrust her
away in his sleep. She slipped arms about him and laid her cheek against his
breast. His heart beat slow and steady. The breath sighed like wind in his
lungs.

He was like the steppe from which he came: slow drumbeat of
horses’ hooves, whisper of the wind through the grass. This city barely
sufficed to hold him. He was as wild as the hawk of heaven.

And yet he was hers. No matter that he refused to accept it.
He fought it, but he could not escape it. She was wilder than he. He was a
child of the tall grass. She was a child of the Goddess.

Was this what the priestesses feared? They had locked the
world in walls and bars. They had made the Goddess into a creature of secrets
and of hidden rites. They had taken her away from the common run of women, and
weakened her teachings.

Maybe it was best if Lir fell, after all. Maybe the temple
should be broken, and its secret places opened to the sky. Maybe then the
Goddess would show herself clear to her children, and no power of man or man’s
weapon would stand against her.

These were terrible thoughts. Yet Rhian could not stop
thinking them. Lir was troubled; its spirit was dark. The Mother was dead, the
priestesses at odds with the king. The Goddess’ harmony was not in it, or
anywhere near it.

Even as troubled as the tribe had been, its king ruled by a
sorceress, his wives and sons divided, it had been singleminded in its purpose.
It would invade, it would conquer. It would pursue the horizon, westward and
ever westward, until it came to the edge of the world. Lir had no such
singleness of mind. It was all scattered in confusion.

Rhian had sent some of the king’s servants, by his leave,
to prepare the Mother’s house for the morning’s council. When she came there at
first light, she found the hall swept, the shutters opened to let in the light,
and chairs set in a ring for those who would come. There was wine waiting, and
new-baked bread, and sweet cakes.

There was no fire in the hearth. That would not be lit, for
there was no Mother to kindle it. But there was light enough, and warmth as the
day brightened.

Rhian marked the place where she would sit, a chair no higher
than any other, facing the door and the hearth and the Mother’s empty chair. As
she investigated the table laden with food and drink, Minas prowled the hall,
restless as a young wolf.

She had not commanded him to come here. When she rose early,
he was up just before her. He watched her bathe and dress, did the same
himself, and followed where she went.

There was some comfort in his presence, and some use also.
It were best he hear what she had to say, and better if he understood it. The
priestesses and the king’s men should know him; he was the center of everything
they did to defend this country.

He seemed slight to be worth so much, and terribly young.
This house meant nothing to him; he was curious, but he was not in awe. The
painted walls fascinated him, and the pillars carved like trees, and the floor
with its many-colored tiles.

He was on his hands and knees, peering at the tiles, when
the priestesses came. There were six of them. Their leader, who walked first,
was she of the clouded eyes. The bitter one followed. The rest were of lesser
note, though none was young.

He crouched, wary as any other wild thing. They regarded
this creature kneeling on the Mother’s floor, with his bright hair and his
startled green eyes, as if he had been an invader from the world of the
spirits. One even made a gesture of warding. Minas grinned at her, which
startled her out of all useful sense.

The king arrived then, which was a mercy, maybe. And maybe
not. The warmth of sun in the hall became suddenly chill. The priestesses drew
away from those half-dozen men in their warlike finery.

They faced one another like adversaries in a fight. Rhian
stepped between them, glaring impartially at both. “You will sit,” she said,
“and eat and drink, and swallow your anger. This is no time or place for it.”

They were so appalled by her impudence, and so shocked that
she would dare it, that they had obeyed before any of them found words to
protest. They ate; they drank the heavily watered wine. They warmed slowly in
the sun.

She sat and watched them. Minas came to sit at her feet. He
was playing the slave, and not too badly, either, if he kept his eyes down.
Those were as defiant as the rest of him was submissive.

When both sides of the battle were quiet, Rhian said, “You
will settle your differences now. You will not leave until you have done so. This
city will be ruled in amity, or it will fall. That is the Goddess’ word.”

“Oh, it is,” said the priestess with the clouded eyes. She sounded
amused. “So, child. You hear her, too.”

“If you hear her,” Rhian asked, “why have you not spoken for
her?”

“And I her Voice,” said the priestess wryly. “I can speak,
but I may not be heard. The Mother’s death deafened us all.”

“Now you will hear,” Rhian said. “And you will listen well.”

“We will not listen to you,” said the bitter priestess.

“I do wonder,” the king said, his deep voice startling after
the voices of the women, “that you take this thing on yourself. The mare’s
servant has never been a ruler. She comes and she goes. She passes like wind
among the people of the Goddess.”