Shadow of the Horsemen (Kalie's Journey) (10 page)

 
“But why would women choose to lie with men if they didn’t have to?” asked the girl next to Varena. Like Varena, she was the daughter of a warrior and a slave woman, and while she was probably a little younger than Kalie’s adopted daughter, and not yet a woman, she likely spoke from experience.

“They wouldn’t!” laughed Yessenia. “The people would die out! Is that why your tribe is so weak? They let women decide when to breed—and now there’s no one left!”

A few women laughed, but most glared at Yessenia. It was the second night of the full moon, and this time, they were sitting on the gentle slope of one of the camp’s few hills. The lake was now far enough away to look like a gilded mirror, and the moon was directly overhead. Many women who had been present last night had not returned, but others, hearing about it, had taken their place. Even Cassia, who should have been resting, had come.

“I told you that tonight, I would not complain about your way of life, but rather tell you of mine,” said Kalie. “So all I can say is that when women—and men—are both permitted to choose their partners, the population increases, and everyone seems to have a good time.”

There was muttering, and Kalie definitely heard the word “whore”, but most were intrigued. The moonlight glistened on unbound hair of yellow and red and brown.

“And it’s really like that everywhere?” asked Brenia. “Not just in one isolated tribe?”

“It was like that everywhere I traveled, and I journeyed from the Black Sea to the Mountains Beyond the West—about as far as a fast horse could run in two moon spans.” Kalie wasn’t sure if that was true, but she enjoyed the effect it had on the audience.

“What was it like, traveling by yourself?” asked Brenia.

“I wasn’t usually by myself. When I traveled by boat—“

“Of course she wasn’t by herself,” sneered a richly dressed young woman. “Didn’t you hear her? Wherever she went, she just grabbed the handsomest man and forced him to service her! After that, he took her wherever she wanted to go!”

“Close your mouth, Yasha!” Brenia ordered. “This is a sacred time for her. If you can’t listen with reverence, then leave!”

“Reverence?” cried Leja, who sat dressed in her finest robes, surrounded by other rich wives, and slaves far more intent on pleasing their mistresses than listening to Kalie. “We came here for entertainment!” She fixed a frightening smile on Kalie. “And you have provided much, my dear, with your vile talk of things no decent woman could even imagine. But even more enjoyable will be to watch your death when the men return and learn of your behavior.”

“And who is going to tell them?” Danica’s voice was like ice. Kalie smiled as the mother of one chief met the gaze of the wife of another. Leja’s face fell.

“What do you mean, Danica? Do you think talk such as this can be kept from them?”

Danica’s voice dropped another degree. “Perhaps not, but remember dear, it’s only the chattering of women. Would a real man ever lower himself to care about such things? He’d be a laughing stock if he did.”

“Why would you seek to protect her?” Kahlar’s wife seemed truly baffled. But the women around her displayed no such confusion. Rather, they looked eagerly at the two women as if hoping for more entertainment. Kalie smiled in the darkness, and for once, found herself more interested in listening than talking.

“What difference could my motives possibly make to you, Leja? All that matters is that—while I live—when I speak, those who are wise obey. Or do you wish to challenge me tonight?”

Leja’s face was whiter than the moon. “I think we have all had enough entertainment,” she said, rising slowly to her feet. There was a moment of silently held breath, as those around her waited to see if a weapon would be drawn or an attack launched, but Leja only turned with a wave of hand and walked slowly toward the tents. Her slaves scrambled after her, and several of her fellow wives followed at a more sedate pace

But at least four of the wives remained where they were.

“I would like to know,” said one who Kalie remembered as snaring almost as many geese as Leja, “what the men of your people are doing when the women gather for these rituals.”

“Most rituals involve both men and women,” said Kalie. “It’s only these three nights, the time of the full moon, when women conduct their own. Even then, it’s only the first night that the women separate themselves for Sacred Mysteries. The one place I visited where the women’s rituals lasted all three nights, the men were gathered in another grove, conducting rituals of their own.”

“So the men were not excluded,” mused Danica. “Not like…”

“Not like women are here? You brought it up!” Kalie said quickly as several eyebrows went up. “That wasn’t a complaint, it was an observation.” But she couldn’t quite keep the laughter out of her voice.

Before she could say anything more about religion, the women brought the subject back to sex.

“But how can you speak so openly about this shameless behavior?” asked a woman, genuinely puzzled. “Oh, perhaps for a slave such as yourself, with no family to concern yourself with—“

“Kalie was not a slave in her land!” Varena’s voice carried to the farthest end of the crowd and she looked the woman in the eye as she spoke.

“And my family was large and prosperous, before your men came and murdered them,” Kalie said, feeling the elation of just moments ago slowly drain out of her. “How is it that you speak to me of honor when you have none of your own? When your men murder those who have saved their lives, or would gladly give as gifts that which they must take by force—“

“Perhaps we should just accept that each side shall remain a puzzle to the other?” Kalie, as surprised as everyone else, saw it was Larren who spoke.

“Perhaps,” said Kalie, wondering if she should invite Larren to take her place. Her fellow Westerner, however, showed no inclination to say anything else, and then another woman spoke up.

“But surely…no one with any honor at all could behave as you claim to! That much is the same everywhere! To throw yourself from one man to another like a common whore—“

“She is a common whore!” shouted Elka. “Haven’t you been listening?”

“Even without that part,” said another wife. “To go where you pleased without an escort? Where’s the joy in that? What of your reputation? What of your father—“

“I think,” Kalie said slowly, “that we simply value different things. In your world, it is strength; the ability to control others or make them suffer that is valued. In mine, we value the well-being of the community. Those held in greatest regard are the people who contribute the most. People skilled with their hands create things that make the lives of those around them more comfortable. Healers can give the gift of life itself. Those who bring in food so that winter becomes a time of feasting and plenty rather than a hungry—“

“But it is that way here as well!” cried Yessenia. “We value those things just as much. A man who slays many enemies and feeds his tribe with their flocks is counted a hero!”

“And the status of his wife grows with his own,” said Elka. “A good wife gains respect as a woman should—through duty and obedience. Not running wild, making a spectacle of herself. And when she bears her husband’s children, daughters as well as sons, their nobility is beyond question, and cannot be taken from them.” She glared at Brenia, as if daring her to argue.

“You mean, until he is slain in battle, and his highborn daughters are made slaves?” Kalie asked with sudden insight. “Is that what happened to you, Elka?”

Elka froze, while laughter and whispers swirled around her. Then, like Leja, she stood and left the gathering. Unlike Leja, no one followed her.

“So both worlds value those who contribute to the greater good,” mused Danica. “Perhaps the difference has more to do with the land itself. Here, there is always someone a man must fight. If he wins, his family prospers. If he loses…” Danica shrugged.

“Yes, the men of your world must protect their families and the animals which are your livelihood,” Kalie said. “But who is it who feeds, clothes and shelters everyone who lives here? It is you.” She swept her hand, to indicate all of the women gathered before her.

“Yes, of course,” said a woman, impatiently. “What of it?”

Kalie sighed, and searched the eyes she saw in the moonlight for some sign of understanding. “You carry the life of your tribe—and with more than just your power to give birth, though that is surely important. You also make the tents your men sleep in during winter, the clothes they wear, the food they eat—but none of it belongs to you! Don’t you ever wish for the right to enjoy the fruits of your own labor? Or at least some respect for it?”

“I have all the respect I need,” said a wife who had thrown back her veil to reveal a thinning mane of dark brown hair. At a gesture from Kalie, Varena leaned over and whispered her name. “My husband knows he wears the finest clothes of any warrior, and he throws many feasts to show his brother warriors what a fine tent I keep for him. He tells me how often men try to buy my slaves for the fine work I get from them!”

Kalie sighed. “Then it is the work of the slaves that is valued, Gallia, as your yourself have just said! While they receive nothing for their skill and efforts but—perhaps—the right to live another day.”

The wives were staring at her in confusion, but many of the slaves were showing more interest. Kalie was at a loss for how to explain, and was considering giving up on discussion all together, when she noticed Larren trying to get her attention. Following Larren’s demurely lowered gaze, Kalie saw she was looking at the ermine cushion on which one of the wives was sitting.

“Tell me, Gallia, do you snare fur animals in the winter?”

“Every year!” said Gallia proudly. “And my husband wears the mantle of fox fur that matches his beard, which I made for him with my own two hands!” She sat back, smugly.

Now Kalie addressed the crowd. “Has anyone else here snared animals? Used their meat to feed your family in winter? Worked their fur until it was soft and warm, and made something beautiful from it?” All around her, women nodded their heads, some even holding up examples of their work. “Has any one of you made something very special, perhaps for yourself, perhaps for another—and then had it snatched from you by your husband, who then presented it as a gift to his new concubine? Or used it to pay off a gambling debt—“ Kalie saw she did not need to continue. The reactions of the women around her told her she had hit her mark.

“My husband did exactly that,” said the woman beside Gallia. “Took a fur I had worked to give my mother in her final illness, and gave it to his concubine.”

“What did you do?” asked Yasha.

“Filled the fur with stinging nettles while he was busy with her!”

When the raucous laughter that followed subsided, Kalie spoke quietly. “But would it not be better if that fur was simply yours to use as you chose? Better for you—and better for the poor woman whose only crime was catching the eye of a heartless man?”
  

At that moment Cassia stood and caught Kalie’s eye. “I shall retire now,” she said quietly, but the message was clear.

Kalie stood quickly, and helped Cassia back to Malke’s tent, then got her ready for bed. She set skins of tea within easy reach, to help with the nausea that continued to plague the pregnant woman. Kalie hoped Cassia would fall asleep quickly, so Kalie could return to the gathering.

But Cassia wasn’t quite ready to sleep.

“That was…interesting,” said Cassia. “I am glad to know more about your people. I never understood how different they were from ours. Perhaps knowing this will allow us to better help them adjust when the warriors of Aahk conquer them and show them the right way to live.”

“Uh…thank you,” said Kalie.

Cassia yawned and began to drift off. “Do not speak in public anymore, Kalie, even when the men are gone. It is…unseemly.”

“Yes, mistress,” said Kalie.

Once Cassia was asleep, Kalie hurried back to the hillside where the women were gathered. Some had returned to their tents, but many were still speaking quietly in small groups. Kalie made no attempt to address the crowd again, or direct the course of the evening. She just walked among them, taking in bits and pieces, almost dizzy with the dream that one day, they might truly understand each other. She stopped where Larren sat, her black-haired companion from the night before by her side.

“Thank you for the suggestion,” Kalie said, embracing her old friend, and was rewarded with a smile in a face that almost seemed to have forgotten how.

“And thank you, for doing with it what I never could,” said Larren. “This is Mavra,” she said, turning to the foreign woman next her. “She is one of the reasons I am still alive—and the only woman I have met in this land who dares to speak of revenge against the warriors who wiped out her tribe.”

“But only to crazy slave girls like myself,” said Mavra, whose eyes did indeed seem to shine with more than just normal excitement. “I hope you will speak more of these strange ideas. Larren used to, but not anymore—and never as you have.”
 

Kalie grinned. “There is still one more night of the full moon.”

She wandered on, listening and learning. Two slave girls spoke in whispers about what it might be like to live as Kalie had. Further on, a wife was loudly telling some friends that the next time her husband took something of hers without asking, he was in for an unpleasant surprise. Kalie hoped to learn what the woman had in mind, but her voice was drowned out by raucous laughter from the next group over.