The Horse Road (3 page)

With one hand I caught hold of the rawhide loop that hung from my saddle's belly band, and then poked my left foot into it. An Indian trader had described these loops to my mother, and she had made one for me to try. Although the nomads could spring on to their short horses simply by grasping a handful of mane, our taller Persian horses were harder to mount. The foot loop, hanging down, usually made it easier to swing myself into the saddle.

Now, however, Gryphon had absorbed the fear that had sent me sliding down the ravine from the high ridge. He bounded sideways with rolling eyes, threatening to topple me off balance and drag me along by one booted foot caught in the loop. I pulled on my reins with my left hand, hopped on one leg, and then sprang into my saddle as it surged beneath
me in constant movement. There was only time for a fleeting glance back at Batu, standing forlornly watching, before Gryphon burst into a gallop, heading across the hillside in the direction of the track. I knew that Batu would be longing to race after us, to see if his father would let him join the warriors, carrying his bow over one shoulder, and a quiver of arrows against his thigh. I also knew that he was too fine a horseman to endanger his mare's injured leg even for what he considered to be the thrill of riding to war. Instead, he would walk calmly back, making the best of the situation as he always did; it was one of the things I admired about him.

Gryphon dodged around the first pine tree in a grove that lay darkly dancing on the hillside. A cloud of sweet, resinous scent filled my nostrils. Suddenly Gryphon shied, his hooves skidding in fallen needles and scoring marks into the grey dirt beneath. I lurched over his bent neck, my legs gripping harder, my body swaying to maintain balance. Now my stallion was bunched beneath me, head flung up, listening. I laid one hand soothingly along his neck, watching his narrow ears strain forward, and ran my gaze admiringly over the profile of his turned head. His fine golden hair did not conceal the veins that lay like dropped threads beneath his thin skin.

For the second time today, I strained to discover what Gryphon could hear.

In a moment, I heard it too: someone singing
softly in a husky voice, and the thud of hoof beats. Gryphon gave a shrill neigh, his ribs vibrating against my legs, and was answered by a fainter cry. Over the slope of hills, beneath the sway and freckle of pine branches, came a woman, tall and regal as a mountain spirit, riding a sleek mare and leading a yearling filly at one shoulder by a rope.

Coins of afternoon light lay in the woman's braided crown of golden hair, sprinkled the high angle of her pale cheeks, and filled her blue eyes, clear as pools of mountain water.

I heaved a gulping sigh of relief. ‘Mother!' I called, the heavy air beneath the pines muffling my cry.

But she had seen me before I spoke. Her gaze ran over me, noting that all was well, but registered no surprise. It was seldom that I saw surprise in my mother's eyes, or laughter, or fear; she surveyed the world with a calmness that was like the calmness of a wild animal, assessing every scent, alert to every clue; giving little away. Although I had inherited my father's black, springing curls and round Greek face, my eyes were as blue as my mother's – but not steady like hers. Even in this moment, my eyes were betraying my agitation, as was Gryphon who was side-stepping between the pines as though joining their summery dance.

‘What is wrong, Kallisto?' my mother asked in her husky voice, halting her horses. ‘The racers returned to camp without you, and Batu was missing also. I have ridden out to find you.'

As my mother spoke, Gryphon stepped forward to touch his nostrils against the dark muzzle of Grasshopper, my mother's mare, in greeting. She let out a squeal but my mother touched her on the withers with one hand, and she stilled instantly.

‘The army is coming for our horses!' I cried. ‘The army from the Middle Kingdom, with their banners of red silk! They are marching down the trading route from the mountains, high up towards Osh!'

‘How do you know this?'

‘Batu and I climbed a ridge and saw them ourselves! And Batu is following me back to camp, leading a mare with a swollen fetlock.'

‘Yes, I see him coming now,' my mother replied, staring past me to the slope of hill where the late afternoon sun washed the grasses. She waved and I twisted in my saddle to see the distant bright dot of Batu's orange tunic.

For a moment, my mother pondered the situation, weaving her fingers through Grasshopper's mane while the filly fidgeted alongside.

‘The army will not travel at night,' she stated. ‘They will make camp in the foothills. Tomorrow they might journey on to the plain. Such an army does not arrive unseen; Ferghana scouts will have brought news to our king in Ershi already. To assemble a great army for battle is a lengthy matter; there are tents to pitch, fires and food to tend to, decisions to be made before the men go forth. Time is on our side still.

‘We will wait for Batu, not leave him alone in the mountains. There is a stream at the bottom of this pine wood, and Batu can soak the mare's leg there. Then we will travel back to the Hsiung-nu camp together, and still have all night in which to begin riding for home; the moon is full. We will reach our horses well ahead of the army.'

‘But, Mother, there were so many of them, marching so fast …' I muttered doubtfully, trailing off beneath her steady regard. Every time that I thought of the great army, massed beneath the tips of its spears, I felt panic welling in my belly like a spring of cold water. I had to reach Swan before the army did.

‘The larger the army is, the more slowly it organises itself,' Mother responded calmly. ‘And men cannot march on empty stomachs. They will halt to eat and sleep tonight.'

She reached into the cloth bag hanging from her saddle, and handed me a piece of sun-dried mutton to chew. I gnawed it gratefully, for Batu and I had not eaten since our breakfast of sheep yoghurt, in the smokiness of a dark yurt before sunrise.

Mother and I waited while Batu crossed the hill to reach us. Then my mother slid from Grasshopper and ran her long, strong hands, calloused from ropes and leather thongs and reins, down all four of the mare's legs. On almost every finger, my mother wore a silver ring inlaid with semi-precious stones: lapis lazuli, carnelian, coral, even pearl. She was like the
nomad women of the Hsiung-nu who carried their wealth with them wherever they journeyed, threaded through their ears, hung around their necks, sliding on their arms. My father preferred to store his wealth at home, in the niches of our plastered walls, where he could display marble statuettes, and carvings lacquered in gold leaf, and drinking horns with silver rims.

The mare stood as still as a black horse painted on a red Greek vase; only her ears flickered as my mother spoke softly in her own tongue. At home, my mother and I spoke Greek to my father and brothers, and Persian in the neighbourhood and markets; in the nomad camp we both spoke Turkic. But to horses my mother always spoke a foreign tongue, the private language of her Sarmatian childhood in misty hills and lush river valleys, the land she had lost in a tribal raid, and that no other person spoke in the slave market of Tashkent. Here in Ferghana, only the horses had truly learned my mother's language; although I could recognise the phrases she used frequently, I could not understand the long monologues that sometimes she muttered to horses. And sometimes, when she gazed at them, I thought she was seeing things that I couldn't see: a ghost world of dreams and spirits. It was said amongst the nomads that my mother spoke the language of horses, but perhaps it was the other way around; perhaps my mother taught to horses the language of her lost days.

She straightened now, her dark green tunic falling to the top of her black boots, and gave Batu a glance that was brief but kind. ‘You did well to spare her from the race,' she said. ‘With rest, and poultices of herbs, her sinew will heal as though nothing has happened.'

At this praise, the faintest blush rose into Batu's high cheeks, although he was usually so independent and fierce. He ducked his head, and led the mare on down the track between the murmuring trees, heading for the valley's mountain water. My mother turned Grasshopper and followed with the filly, Tulip, walking alongside whilst I brought up the rear. How could my mother be so unconcerned, while the Chinese spilled from the mountains with horse greed burning in their hearts? If only she had seen their lumbering camels staggering beneath bags and bales of supplies! If only she had watched their tight-packed cavalry formations jogging steadily westwards! In my thoughts, the warriors' banners snapped and soared in the thin air of the high mountains, bright as wounds against the dark rocks.

‘Hurry, hurry!' I wanted to shout at our horses as they went quietly downwards, tails flicking at flies. The filly had a reddish tail that flared in the late sloping light, for she was a red roan, and I had named her Tulip when she was born. My mother liked to lead the yearling when she rode, giving Tulip exercise, teaching her manners, making her listen to my mother's spoken
commands, exposing her to city roads and mountain tracks so that by the time she was old enough to be ridden she would be wise beyond her years. In the markets of Ershi, Andijon and Kokand, my mother's horses were famous for their training as well as for their stamina and great beauty.

The valley into which we rode was deep and narrow, with rocky walls that the track trickled steeply down, washed out by spring rains. The horses skidded, set back on their pasterns, hocks bent under their bellies, as we descended into blue shadows and the roar of water. My saddle blanket slipped higher on to Gryphon's withers; only the crupper, decorated with bronze flowers and passing beneath his tail, prevented it from sliding on to his neck.

Near the base of the cliff, we dismounted on a ribbon of gravel and sat upon rocks licked smooth as melons. Batu backed the mare into a pool of water, eddying behind a boulder, and let it suck away the heat and pain of her swollen leg. She stood placidly, eyes drifting shut. The other horses were not as patient. They ambled up and down on the gravel, their reins knotted around their necks, their lips working across the cliff face in search of any plants or clumps of grass that clung there. Gryphon caught hold of the branches of a shrub growing from a crevice, and pulled them sideways through his mouth, tearing off the leaves. Grasshopper balanced on three legs and reached one hind leg forward to scratch
delicately at her face, where flies had bitten it, using the edge of her hoof. Tulip backed into a boulder, careful as a dancer learning new steps, and began to rub her rump and tail on the hard surface.

‘She's smiling,' I said, watching the filly's soft lips quiver and wrinkle.

The shadows grew deeper as we waited, drinking water from the stream in our cupped hands. The moon began to rise in the east, although the sky was still a veneer of brilliant blue. ‘Selene, the moon goddess,' I said, pointing. ‘Her white mares are eager to run.'

‘This is one of your father's goddesses?' Batu asked.

I nodded. ‘She drives her chariot all night, whilst Helios drives his golden horses all day across the sky.'

‘I don't know how you city people keep track of all your deities,' Batu said, running his hand down the mare's neck. ‘Here in the mountains, my people know every rock and river, every peak and valley. It is easy to speak to our spirits, and our ancestors. They are all around us every day.'

‘In the city, there are many other gods,' I agreed. ‘My mother's people were like yours, they listened to shamans and worshipped sacred places. My father has all his Greek gods and goddesses; he tells wonderful stories about them.'

‘But does he truly believe in them, in their power?' Batu asked, his face serious and intent.

I shrugged. ‘He's a trader, he must give respect to the beliefs of all the nations and peoples he trades
with. At home now, both my parents worship Ahura Mazda, the Supreme Being. He is always in a great struggle with Angra, the wicked evil one who opposes him. While Ahura Mazda creates fertile fields and peaceful work for men, Angra sows thistles and bitterness; he provokes men to deceit and dishonour.'

Batu rubbed his hand in swirls along the mare's back. ‘It's all so complicated, so many of them,' he said. ‘A trader in the market last year gave me the statue of a little plump man with a smiling face; he said he was the Buddha and could teach men the way to enlightenment through letting go of suffering. Ha! Maybe my mare is getting enlightened here in this pool!' He laughed, his strong teeth pale in the canyon's shadows.

Behind us, my mother stopped humming.

‘War is suffering,' she said. ‘War is coming into your lives. At this moment, the Chinese are planning victory around their evening fires. They are grinding their sword blades, cleaning their horse harness, filling their bellies with confidence by calling on their celestial gods.'

A chilly breeze drifted down the canyon and I shivered and tightened the sash holding my robe together. My eyes filled with all those faces, laughing, eating, talking about winning our horses and taking them far away, where they would never be seen again, past the great Taklamakan Desert where nothing lives, nothing flies. How would Swan survive such a
migration? And how would I survive without her soaring gallop, her gentle eyes set in her pale, shimmering coat, and the curve of her neck, graceful as the throat of a bird?

I stifled a whimper. ‘I think Batu's mare can walk now, I think we should –'

My mother held up her hand, and I fell silent as she began to speak again. ‘Did I ever tell you, Batu, how your mother and I became sworn to help one another?'

‘No,' Batu said, for my mother rarely spoke of herself. Now she sat cross-legged on a flat rock, and stared off into time.

‘In the slave markets of Tashkent,' she began, ‘I was a girl old enough to be wed but now I had lost my people, my fine young men, my fast horses. I had lost my mother-tongue, my bride-wealth chest, my spears, my bronze mirrors, my spinning distaff. I had lost my path, and my spirit wandered alone while my body was bargained for. I wished then that I had fallen upon my spear rather than been taken by the raiders that swooped upon my village on a night without moon. To have died swiftly would have been a mercy but now, in this slave market, I must die slowly every day for I had lost the two most important things in life.'